


light returning

by lilysaid



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Christmas, Derek Hale & Sheriff Stilinski Bonding, Derek Hale is Bad at Feelings, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Nightmares, POV Derek Hale, Pack Bonding, Pining Derek, Pining Stiles Stilinski, Post-Nogitsune, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Stiles Stilinski is Derek Hale's Anchor, Underage Stiles Stilinski, Werewolf Cubs, Yule
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:20:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22850878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilysaid/pseuds/lilysaid
Summary: Derek skips town just after the Nogitsune. When he realizes his mistake, he sets off to find Stiles, make amends, and keep his feelings for Stiles hidden. Two out of three isn't bad.Pining, bed sharing, highly-suspect platonic touching, and shameless adoration of Derek's beard.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 161
Kudos: 1373





	light returning

When Derek approaches the Stilinski house for the first time in over two months, he knows right away that something is wrong. Not a threat, exactly, but a lack of Stiles that’s more than his simple absence from the house. Prying open Stiles’ bedroom window reveals that the window hasn’t been opened in a while—months, maybe—and it’s been just as long since Stiles has been in the room.

For a moment, Derek stands near Stiles’ stripped-down bed and frowns. There’s probably a logical reason for Stiles’ absence, except that the longer he stands there, the longer he realizes there _isn’t._ Stiles has only just begun his senior year, so it’s not like he’s gone off to college, and the Sheriff is downstairs, which means there’s no family vacation or— Derek’s mind blanks out for a second as he inhales again, desperate for a trace of Stiles other than what’s been naturally embedded in his childhood bedroom, and finding nothing.

It’s not just scent. The room has been purged of anything that made it Stiles’—a worn-out mattress rests on the bed-frame and an empty dresser sits against the wall with the drawers removed and stacked at unsettling angles. The walls are bare, though scarred with evidence that Stiles spent most of his life in this room, and in the corner are a cluster of cardboard boxes taped shut and labeled _Donate_ in an unfamiliar scrawl.

Derek stumbles back against the wall where Stiles’ desk used to be, trying to clear his head even as his wolf readies to grieve as it’s learned to do over and over again. He doesn’t even notice the low, wounded sound he’s making until the door opens and Sheriff Stilinski is there, regarding him with caution.

The Sheriff’s mouth opens and then closes—so much like Stiles that the pain Derek is trying to contain in his chest twists deep—before he finally relaxes his stance and says, “Are you all right? You’ve looked better. Granted, I’ve seen you look worse, but this is-“

At that, he gestures at Derek’s face, which is when Derek realizes he must look crazy, his eyes too wild as he lets the wall support his weight.

“Stiles hasn’t been here,” he croaks. “Is he-“ He gives the Sheriff a desperate look and receives a sigh in return.

“Ah. No, Stiles is fine. As fine as he can be, I suppose. What happened before with that demon took a lot out of him,” he says thoughtfully. “Son, you look like you need a comfortable seat and a cup of something hot. Let’s go downstairs and you can explain why you left town when you did. Then we can discuss whether you deserve to know where he’s gone.”

The words are kind enough to clog up Derek’s throat, but harsh enough to ground him in his comfort zone where he’s being berated for hurting the people he cares about. He nods and follows the Sheriff downstairs, to find the rest of the house intact but partly in boxes, as though the packing process has casually begun.

The Sheriff still lives here. His scent is strong in the living room, especially on the sofa, where he’s been sleeping. Derek hovers in the living room, searching out signs of Stiles. When the Sheriff returns, Derek strategically settles on the end of the sofa nearest the door.

The Sheriff hands Derek a yellow mug that smells of coffee and Irish cream, gratified when he turns it around and sees the _Sarcasm (n.) Your body’s natural defense against stupid_ printed in bold red on the side. It was the mug most often on Stiles’ desk when Derek would visit. 

He tightens his hands around the mug. “Thank you, Sheriff.”

“Not Sheriff anymore. You’ll have to call me Noah.” Derek waits with a raised eyebrow until Noah is finished enjoying his bombshell. “I resigned. It’s too little too late, but I need to be there for my son, who waited two weeks for you to come back and then insisted he couldn’t stay in Beacon Hills for a second longer. You can probably tell we’re selling the house, and when it’s final, I’ll join him.”

But where _is_ Stiles? Derek’s jaw feels tight, his skin itchy. If Stiles had wanted him to come back, then why had he only texted Derek once: _so ur just gone now?_

It isn’t like Stiles to just let something go, but there hadn't been a second message.

“He was surprised when you left.” Noah is being direct, but with a gentleness that reminds Derek of how his own father had dealt with him.

"A lot has happened over the past couple years. I tried to keep him out of it, but Stiles is. . .” He can’t say it, not even with Noah being so kind. “Nothing like that should have ever happened to him.” 

“Well, we agree on that point. I wouldn’t have let him go if I thought this place would let him recover in peace. And forgive me if I’m not making things easy, but you seem to have something he thinks he needs, and you couldn’t get out of town fast enough.”

Derek’s heart skips a beat and returns as a small earthquake in his chest.

“But maybe you wouldn’t have left if you’d known that.”

Even with that generous allowance, Derek shakes his head, helpless. He doesn’t know. He can’t even comprehend it. Stiles’ mug is cooling where it’s cradled in his hands. All he can do is say, “I need to see him.”

Noah nods, and Derek takes the opportunity to study him. He’s sad, as sad as anyone still struggling through life in Beacon Hills, which is unrecognizable as the place Derek grew up. But he’s moving forward, and in his shoulders there’s a looseness that indicates hope, acceptance, and all the things Derek wants Stiles to have.

“I can tell you with confidence that he wants to see you,” Noah says, taking a deep gulp from his own mug. “But I can’t promise he’ll be happy about it.” He eyes Derek. “And you don’t seem the type to grovel. That makes me nervous.”

“That’s not our relationship,” Derek says. “Me and Stiles. We don’t back down. He acts it out sometimes _,_ but it’s just a schtick he does to keep the peace.”

“So you know him pretty well.”

Derek can’t speak. His legs flex with the impulse to travel far and fast. To make a quick, rude exit and get to Stiles.

“Is this a homecoming? Are you here to stay?”

“No sir,” he says, sure-footed for the first time since he arrived. “I’m here for Stiles. Wherever he is, that’s where I’ll stay.”

It’s the right answer. Derek gets his address, written on a paper with the same scrawl as the boxes upstairs. Before he leaves, Noah rinses Stiles’ mug, hands it back to Derek, and says, “Best arrive with a gift.”

He arrives the next day at the address Noah gave him—a small farm at the edge of a forest in Washington between Portland and Olympia—and spends the day prowling the perimeter and then closer. He pauses as he nears, as confused as he is wary. There hadn’t been any werewolves in town, but wolves definitely live here—more than one.

It could be a problem. Derek is out of line to trespass on another wolf’s territory; they could kill him for this, but he doesn’t think Noah would have sent him here if that were likely.

To learn more, he takes a quick lap through the spacious farmhouse, pretending he’s not headed straight for Stiles’ room upstairs where the scent of him is strongest. It’s reassuring, the familiarity of that scent—healthy, whole—even though there are subtle changes: notes of ink, northern soil, and strangers.

Derek runs his hands over all Stiles’ pillows before he moves on to inspect the other bedrooms—a guest room down the hall from Stiles and downstairs, a child’s room with two toddler-sized beds. Adjacent to that is the master bedroom, which he doesn’t enter, but it’s easy enough to scent out the other inhabitants of the house: an Alpha werewolf, a human, and two cubs.

When Noah explained that the farm belonged to Elena Townsend and her partner Abe, he’d exuded the type of grief and anger Derek recognizes from his own life. Elena, it turns out, had been Claudia Stilinski’s lifelong best friend, and after Claudia died, Elena had pushed Noah to let Stiles live at the farm with her and Abe. Permanently.

“I know she loves Stiles and I knew it back then, but when she said a cop—that _I—_ couldn’t raise a kid alone, I was so pissed off I cut her out of our lives entirely even though Stiles adored her, Abe, and that goddamn farm.” Noah had said, reeking of bitterness. “And of course Stiles kept asking about them, which pissed me off even more.”

Derek had nodded, remembering when his great-grandmother had died and his youngest sister, too young at the time to understand, had asked for her over and over until their sorrow had made them angry and Laura had snapped.

Noah leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “What I hate most is that she was right. I can’t be in two places at once, so Stiles was alone too much. I didn’t know about what he was up to until it was too late, until he was almost gone. The kid I sent to Townsend farm is not the same kid from a year ago, and if I had just sent him back when she begged me to, he could be. . .”

Derek had waited, aching with sympathy and his own regrets, but Noah had never finished the thought. 

Instead, he encouraged Derek to find Stiles.

A vehicle with a large, laboring engine approaches from about a mile away, so he doesn’t get the chance to inspect the rest of the property. He doesn’t want to ambush Stiles in his new home. Better let him see Derek coming—no more surprises.

Noah had texted additional details about Stiles’ life—more details than Derek needs, enough that he understands Noah believes Derek can do something for Stiles. He’s a good father. It’s too bad, Derek thinks as he slips out the back door, that he doesn’t know nearly enough about Derek to make that call.

The community center where Stiles works part-time is a flat brick building adjacent to a park with shiny yellow playground equipment and a basketball court. Derek parks in the front lot because he’s driving a black pick-up now, more practical than the Camaro for the type of situations he finds himself in. It also has the bonus of blending in up here in this rural community

He picks up Stiles’ scent right away, and then comes the familiar sound of his heartbeat. His instincts tell him to rush the front doors and seek him out right away, but he sits in his truck and breathes through his nose, head bent forward, and lets the sound soothe him until it’s not enough anymore and he wants more than scent and sound—he wants to see Stiles.

Parts of the building have large windows through which Derek can see people milling about—parents waiting for their children to finish music lessons, a pottery class working at their lumps of clay, and near the front door, at the reception counter, the familiar line of Stiles’ shoulders as he rifles through a cardboard box.

Derek’s chest clenches with emotion—the wrenching kind, like when he first saw Cora alive, or realized Stiles was the Nogitsune. He’s so tired of surprises that break his control.

And then Stiles turns, types something into the computer at the desk, and Derek is so utterly unprepared for the familiar slopes and angles of Stiles’ pale, smooth face that he ducks around the corner of the building.

A guy in grease-stained coveralls wipes his hands on a rag and saunters toward Derek.

“Are you here for the oil-change class? Because that doesn’t start for another hour.”

Derek realizes he’s standing at the entrance to a garage where an old Ford sedan is centered with the hood up.

“Just taking a look around.” The guy’s name tag says _Steve_ and he smells faintly of a note Stiles’ room carries, which Derek now recognizes as the scent of the community center. That bit of knowledge feels good, as though he’s making headway understanding the anatomy of Stiles’ new life.

“Sure, did you already talk to Stiles?”

A bolt of alarm goes through Derek before he realizes that Steve only means Stiles the front desk guy, and not Stiles the pissed-off friend.

“Yeah, thanks,” Derek says, and slips away toward the park.

He returns an hour later, falling back on his instincts as he prowls the perimeter again, listening to Stiles work quietly and occasionally answer questions for patrons—always friendly, but never animated—until he hears a woman say, in a low voice, “Hey Stilinski, your shift ends in ten minutes, right? Watch out when you leave today. Some creep has been hanging around the grounds all day. Steve saw him earlier, and I just spotted him out the bathroom window.”

At this, Stiles’ heartbeat thunders violently, unexpectedly. “What was he doing?”

“Just standing in the park and staring at the building like a pervert who knows there’s kids inside.”

Stiles doesn’t say anything in return. Derek doesn’t know what to make of this quiet Stiles.

“Are you okay? I can walk you to your car if you want.”

“No! I mean, nah, thanks.” Stiles’ heart is still stuttering along as though he’s being chased, and he does a shitty job of covering it.

“Stiles. . .” Even though he doesn’t know the woman, Derek recognizes her tone. She knows Stiles isn’t okay, can see his visible reaction, and doesn’t know whether to let it go. She eventually makes her decision after more _nothing_ from Stiles and after a few seconds, Derek hears her walk away.

“ _Derek,_ ” Stiles whispers, but he’s not talking to Derek. There’s a lilt of uncertainty as he says the word to himself and tries to talk himself out of believing what before, he would have known right away. “Fuck. _Fuck, fuck,”_ he mutters, his voice contorted by a knot of frustration in his throat.

Derek goes back to his truck and waits. After about five minutes, Stiles emerges from a side door, dressed for the chilly weather in his old grey hoodie topped by an unfamiliar scarf and hat. His hands are shoved into the hoodie’s pockets, and he scans the parking lot twice before he spots Derek through the windshield. When they make eye contact, Derek feels it in his gut. 

He clenches the steering wheel and stares at Stiles, who stares back until he eventually begins to move, trotting toward Derek’s truck and coming to stop at the driver’s side so they can regard one another through the window.

Stiles’ scarf is grey and black, a wide swatch of soft flannel that covers his neck and drapes over his left shoulder. The hat is plain, black, and fitted close to his head. His hair, grown out a bit, pokes out from beneath and curls against his forehead. He looks the same—the same inquisitive nature and expressive eyes. The same beautiful face.

Derek struggles not to reach for the door handle, to yank it open and breathe him in without a pane of glass between them.

Finally, Stiles snorts with derision. “Bet I’m the last person you expected to see here. Nice to know you’re still a massive creeper in any locale, but if you’re here to give me a ‘this town’s not big enough for the two of us’ talk, save it. I’m not leaving.”

Derek just stares at him. What Stiles is saying doesn’t make sense—he thinks it’s, what, some accident of fate that Derek would end up here, facing him through an increasingly foggy window?

Derek shakes his head and swipes his palm over the glass so he can see Stiles’ face in clearer detail. Then he reaches down and grabs the yellow mug from the seat beside him.

Stiles’ face spasms with recognition when Derek holds it up, his mouth falling open in the way Derek always remembers him—this reliable willingness to express every emotion. 

“I brought this for you. Thought you might miss it.”

Stiles’ nose is pink from the cold. He gives it a quick swipe with his sleeve and when he looks back at Derek, his eyes are brighter. “You drove twelve hundred miles just to give me a shitty novelty mug?”

Derek holds his gaze, steady, and Stiles actually quirks his flexible mouth into a half-smile. Impatient, Derek pushes his finger against the button to lower the glass and lets it hit him, a sweet gust of Stiles, and relief, and home.

“Your dad seemed to think I might need to bribe you.”

“I hope that’s not your best offer.”

Derek raises an eyebrow even though Stiles has struck right at his weakest point: he doesn’t know if he has anything to offer. “Your hair is longer.”

Stiles steps back. “Yeah, it’s been almost three months since you saw me. Between like, drowning in evil and watching my friends die, personal styling fell to the bottom of my to-do list.”

“No, it.” Derek frowns, twists the mug in his hands. “It looks fine. Good,” he adds, too late.

He’s rewarded with a narrow look and a shrug. “Whatever. I’m gonna be late.” Stiles claps his hand once on the edge of the car door, where the window is rolled down. “Nice to see ya.”

What the _fuck._ Derek watches as Stiles turns and makes for his own car across the parking lot, not going quite quickly enough for Derek to call it running.

Before Derek left Beacon Hills, in the bare space between the defeat of the Nogitsune and Derek’s departure, there had been a _moment._

At least, Derek thinks there was.

There are times he can remember exactly how it had gone the day he checked Stiles over for himself, the warmth of Stiles’ cheek as Derek palmed it with one hand and leaned in to seek eye contact, just to make sure it was really Stiles in there.

He hadn’t expected Stiles to hook him with those dark honey eyes, to go soft in a way Derek hadn’t known he could be. It was such an unexpected pleasure that Derek had forgotten to mind his own expression, and then they were both were caught in a moment of hesitant, reluctant recognition. They’d been in Stiles’ kitchen where he was making breakfast, and when the toaster ejected his toast with a click, they both moved away.

After all this time, Derek isn’t sure whether he’d actually seen tenderness in Stiles’ eyes, or if that’s just how Stiles looks at people who touch him.

So he doesn’t know and he can’t ask, but there may have been a moment.

  
Derek had departed the next morning without any plan other than to drive east. He traded in the Camaro, shrugged off any lingering doubts, and ignored the flash of his phone when Stiles messaged him two days later.

Self-preservation is programmed into his genes. If it weren’t, Derek imagines he would have left Beacon Hills with a duffel bag of clothes and a head full of suicidal ideation. He always did well in school and learned lessons easily, so there was no reason for him to keep making the same mistakes: gathering up pack and losing them all. Peter may have started the mess, but Derek kept it going, making mistake after mistake.

Leaving had been the right thing to do—the _kind_ thing to do, his mother would have said, to just remove himself from the equation, and Derek spent a few of those first cross-country nights thinking desperately about the time he belonged to a pack who loved him visibly, tangibly, every single day. It had been so long since he allowed himself to open that door that it was like taking those first losses all over again, but it was too late. He was alone, and if he wanted to reflect on pain instead of a plan, it didn’t affect anyone but himself.

It was a blow when it became apparent after the first moon that the thing he was most proud of, the altruism of leaving Beacon Hills, carried consequences. When the full moon rose, Derek discovered that he’d somehow, without intent, done what his parents always warned him not to do: he’d allowed an anchor to find _him,_ rather than the other way around.

He didn’t even realize it until he was in a southeast beach town and realized that not only had there been a feral scratching under his skin all day, but that he’d been settling the feeling each time by conjuring Stiles in his mind. Not just Stiles, but _the moment._

Even once he realized it, he hadn’t stopped. Instead, he increased the reliance by picking up his phone a dozen times a day just to look at a photo he'd kept for what he convinced himself were practical purposes.

Derek was never big on taking pictures, but there’d been a day a few months before the Nogitsune when he’d been looking at the bestiary over Stiles’ shoulder. Reading over Stiles’ shoulder was always a fidgety, skirmish-laden affair, so he’d eventually just snapped a photo of the page in question—along with it, the back of Stiles’ head and, because he’d already begun to turn, the rise of one cheekbone and the jut of his ridiculous eyelashes. It was barely anything, and yet it was all there: the line of his neck, the loose collar of his t-shirt where Derek had yanked him up earlier that night. The whole damn picture had become the center of every anxiety, regret, and self-loathing thought Derek had, these days.

After pulling up the photo ad nauseum, he finally just made it his lock screen.

Noah had no right to look at him like he could save Stiles, when Derek was actually here to take from him.

Derek takes another quick pass through town before he heads back to the farm under the press of grim obligation that comes with having wronged another wolf. There’s nothing else to be done—it had been one thing to sneak into Stiles’ room when the Sheriff was home, but there’s no such thing as flying under the radar in a werewolf’s house. When he rings the doorbell, he’s hyper-aware of how alone he is. Practically an Omega, really, which he usually tries not to think about. He had his chance—a handful of betas ready to follow him, and now they’re all gone.

The woman who opens the door is short, curvy, and has a head of tight blonde curls that spring out from her head about a foot in every direction. She’s in her late thirties, he guesses, and her nose scrunches with a slightly scolding expression as she regards him through the screen door with a flash of red eyes. “You’re very lucky I recognized your scent from Stiles’ belongings,” she says right away, as though she’s been expecting him. “We’ve got two little ones in the house, so you can imagine what we would do if we thought a strange wolf was trespassing on our territory.”

Derek nods. There’s no one left who remembers a time when he wasn’t a strange wolf, when he had the run of his own territory and the protection of a powerful Alpha who loved him. But he still has to make a life for himself, so he meets her eyes and says, “I apologize. Noah only told me you were his wife’s friend, and once I realized, I was already—I wanted to see for myself. It won’t happen again.”

She laughs darkly as she opens the door and makes room for him to come inside. “Noah didn’t tell you because he doesn’t know. Stiles seems to think he wouldn’t mind, but this is the first time I’ve had this darling boy at my farm in nearly a decade, and I’m not giving his father another reason to keep him away.”

Derek follows her to the kitchen, where a man about Elena’s age is drinking tea over a thick black mustache and watching a toddler shovel applesauce into her mouth with a plastic spoon from atop a red high-chair. The girl is a wolf, the man is human.

“Abe,” he says, rising slightly to extend a hand to Derek. He’s tall and broad with a wide, square nose, a thick ponytail, and friendly, freckled face. He squeezes Derek’s hand without trying to prove anything before he sits again, retrieves the cub’s spoon from the floor and wipes it on his jeans. 

“Derek Hale. I’m sorry about earlier. I was looking for Stiles.”

Elena gestures toward the table and takes a seat herself after Derek sits. “And what would Stiles think if he knew you were sneaking into his room?”

Derek knows how unfriendly he looks when he frowns, but he can’t help it when it’s impossible to determine whether it would be better or worse to admit how long he’s been climbing through Stiles’ window.

“Ah, all right. Not the first time, then.” Elena nods. “Stiles told us about you, but apparently not nearly enough. What happened to your family was just terrible; I’m so sorry. I knew Talia, of course.”

The cub squeals and bangs her hands on the tray. A tuft of soft brown hair is combed over the top of her head and curls just under her ears. Her fingers are grimy with applesauce and unfathomably tiny—it’s been ages since Derek has even seen a cub.

“Thanks,” he says, belatedly, just as Stiles bangs through the front door and around the corner.

“Sas!” the cub shouts. Her legs thrust straight out with excitement and her arms follow, straining toward Stiles as though he’s a magnet and she’s being pulled to him. 

Derek knows how she feels. As soon as he sees Stiles, smells the scent of fresh sweat, his Jeep, and the outdoors carried in on his skin, something in him relaxes. When he does, he feels Elena do the same, and then realizes how much he’s been keeping her on edge.

What a shitty impression he’s making. Stiles deserves better and obviously knows it, because he tosses his backpack onto the counter and gives Derek a look that’s somehow both dumbfounded and judgmental. “I see you’ve met Derek,” he says, gesturing wildly toward Derek. “Derek Hale, lover of excessive violence, tight jeans, and leaving town without notice.”

“I don’t love excessive violence, Stiles.”

“Like that’s what I really care about,” Stiles shoots back.

“That’s enough for now.” Elena is tiny; she lifts up onto her toes in order to squeeze Stiles’ arms just beneath his shoulders. When Stiles looks down at her, his eyelashes look just like they do in Derek’s lock screen. “Werewolves have a stronger sense of fight or flight than humans,” she tells him. “And when we don’t have any fight left, there’s no other choice.”

Stiles looks up over Elena’s curls. “Like Derek would ever run out of fight,” he mutters, but the silence that follows only amplifies the statement and as a few seconds tick past, reveals its truth.

Derek stands as casually as he can manage. “I should go. Elena, Abe, nice to meet you. Stiles.” He nods once at each of them and then heads for the door, relieved when they let him go, relieved when he makes it to the truck—and then, on his way to the motel, disappointed Stiles hadn’t followed.

He’s lying in bed feeling irritated with Stiles when his phone buzzes. Derek looks at it from across the mattress and tries to determine whether he wants to deal with it right now. When he finally looks, it’s a short message that says a lot.

_why are you even here?_

Much later that night, he picks it up again and types _I wanted to see you_ before he can overthink it.

_wanted in the past tense? hope it’s present, bc_

_Aunt Elena is changing the sheets in the guest_  
_room and says you better be here for lunch at 1_

Derek studies the invitation for a few minutes, considering all the ways this could be a trap. After creeping around in an Alpha werewolf’s house, he’s lucky he’s intact and not holed up healing somewhere. But he trusts Stiles—even this angry, resentful version of him.

_I’ll do lunch but the motel is fine_

Only a few minutes go by before his phone vibrates again. It’s still in his hand, so he lifts it and sees that Stiles has written an enormous amount of text in that short time.

_first of all I know no motel in this town is ‘fine’_  
_and if you’re really serious about being here for_  
_me, whatever thats about, then don’t do it for_  
_Elena. do it for me, because she’s nice and for_  
_whatever reason she thinks you’re this great_  


_werewolf so can you please consider it a_  
_personal favor even though I do not forgive you_  
_for all the abandonment and how ur apparently_  
_unable to form a meaningful bond with decent_  
_people (ME) and spend all your time bonding_  
_with psychos like Peter and, you know…_

Derek has technically been lower than this. It sucks to remind himself of that, but this isn’t the worst position he’s been in. Running from Beacon Hills after the fire had been all terror and loss and a constant unstoppable descent. He’s come a long way since then. He’s still got a little family left, even if they’ve lost their pack bond. Regardless of what Stiles says, Derek has grown up, faced the Argents, and come to care about a handful of people. He buries his face in the pillow for a few seconds before he responds.

_she doesn’t even know me_

And maybe Stiles doesn’t either.

Stiles comes back right away with:

_she went on and on about your incredible mom_  
_and the Hale pack before even I told her I knew_  
_you. I wasn’t name-dropping, I swear. cmon,_  
_sourwolf. just come for a little visit and make her_  
_day?_

_I’ll see you at 1:00,_ he types, and turns off his phone for the rest of the night.

When he arrives at the farmhouse, a second cub around three years old prances up to Derek and looks up at him from what seems like a great distance. His teeth go pointy when he points up at Derek and says, “Wolf! Mama, wolf."

Elena laughs and scoops him up. “Very good, Nicholas. Now, can you tell me if this wolf been in our house before?”

The boy breathes deeply, dramatically, with a deep snuffling sound as he cranes his neck toward Derek. Stiles falls back on the sofa, laughing softly, but Derek keeps a straight face as he waits for the boy’s response. This is how cubs learn.

“Kitchen,” Nicholas says finally, pointing again at Derek.

“Good job,” Derek says. “I was in the kitchen yesterday.”

Nicholas brightens at the praise. His fangs recede as he holds up his fist and begins to count, separating his fingers as he goes. “One, two, three wolfs in my house.”

“What about Mae-Mae?” Elena asks, and sets him down with a kiss to the top of his head.

He looks at Stiles, then Derek, and narrows his eyes as he thinks. “Four wolfs,” he finally says, decisive.

Derek nods at him. He doesn’t trust himself to speak. It seems impossible that it’s been so many years since he scooped up a cub or chased them around the house, but here he is with a sudden backlog of sense-memory that he wasn’t prepared for.

The silence seems awkward, excruciating. “I forgot something in my truck,” he blurts, and doesn’t wait for an answer before he walks mechanically out the front door. He takes the steps slowly and stops next to his truck to stare out at the treeline—away from the house, in case anyone is watching. 

What the hell is he doing, throwing himself at Stiles and intruding on a strange pack?

He distracts himself from the turbulence in his head by listening to the scene he left behind: “Wolf come back?” from Nicholas, Stiles’ uneasy “Maybe I’ll just go see--” and Elena’s, “I’m going to take Derek for a walk around the farm. Nicky, do you think you could help Stiles carry Derek’s bags inside and put them in his room?”

 _His room_ —Derek already has a room. She made sure he heard it. He made sure not to bring a bag.

Nicholas shouts his approval and from the sound of it, knocks the wind out of Stiles in his excitement.

Elena emerges from the house, approaching Derek carefully and looking up at him with kind hazel eyes. “Would you like a tour of the farm?” 

Derek nods with a slight bend of submission in his neck—he can’t help it, and anyway, she seems pleased by it. With a smile, she hooks her arm through his and leads him toward the right side of the house, where a number of plots are arranged to make one large square with room to walk between them.

“We’re just past harvest, but we grow most of our own food here, and you probably noticed the herb garden in the greenhouse. That’s Abe’s. He and Stiles have similar talents; do you know what I mean?”

Derek thinks about the mountain ash, about the few things he remembers Deaton saying about Stiles’ potential. “I think so.”

“Good. Then you know how lucky we are to have them both around. Abe also grows several strains of Wolfsbane in the northeast corner of our territory, so don’t be alarmed when you catch wind of that.”

The air is fresh, and the woods are heavy with the ripe late-autumn scents Derek always loved back home. The territory itself is well-marked; he feels at ease on this land, especially with Elena at his side.

They stop just past a large building that houses farm equipment and a few things Derek doesn’t recognize by scent. Derek extracts his arm from Elena’s and faces her. “Why did you invite me here? You don’t even know me.”

“That’s true, but I did know your family. I know Stiles is your anchor and you need to be near him no matter how much you resent being in that position. And I know that he wants you here.”

“He doesn’t want me here.” Derek shoves his hands into his pockets and looks up at the gray, quick-moving sky.

“Stiles has been here for over two months,” Elena says firmly. “So when I say he wants you here, I hope you understand all the reasons I’m in a position to know. But it’s not just Stiles who wants you here. Our pack was just me and Abe for a long time, which was our choice, but we’re growing—first these orphaned cubs we took in six months ago, and then Stiles, who smelled so strongly of wolves when he arrived that Nicholas thought he was one!” She laughs and coaxes Derek to begin walking toward a large white barn. “And now, here you are. Your history, your relationship with Stiles, all of that is good for my family, for our pack.”

“We just met.”

“I’m not being reckless, Derek,” she says, just as a strengthening wind blows her curls in every direction. “I listen to my pack, and Abe has seen you coming for months. It was summer when he told me we should expect a strong beta who can be a protector, brother, and friend.”

“I don’t have any friends.” The confession isn’t easy. He resents he casual way she’s offering what he wants most. It’s been a long time since anyone looked at Derek as anything other than a means to an end—a body in the line of defense. He hates the hope he’s been feeling since he received Stiles’ text last night, and how it just keeps getting stronger.

There are two things his wolf—any wolf—needs: an anchor and an Alpha. He came to Stiles for the former, and when Elena had flashed red he'd shifted his body language only _just_ enough to be acceptably deferent and not enough to be technically polite, all while knowing full well that she would be the best kind of Alpha—the type his mom had been, able to keep order and show affection and foster healthy behaviors from everyone in the pack.

She must have felt the pull of his longing, which makes his skin feel tight with shame. Wolves without a pack were always the object of pity and caution; for the first sixteen years of his life Derek had been oblivious to how easy it would be to become such a thing. He hadn’t even known it was possible for someone like him to end up this way.

She puts her hand on his arm, just below the elbow—she’s too tiny to reach any higher—and touches him very gently. “Can I say I’m surprised by your reluctance? Most wolves in your position would be eager to join us.”

“What is my position?”

“A born wolf raised by a good family—an excellent pack both in strength and reputation. Anyone raised that way would miss that stability, the affection. You do, don’t you? And I know you can sense you could fit here, yet you’re considering going it alone even though Stiles is already half-yours and I saw how you were looking at those cubs. I know what your instincts are telling you right now. I know that you like me and trust me. So you don’t trust yourself, then?”

“That’s not it.”

“What is it, then? Help me understand.”

Derek leans against the steel siding on the barn and idly digs his heel into the patch of weeds under his foot. “It’s too easy. That’s what I don’t trust.”

“You’d prefer more difficulty in your life.”

“I don’t want any more surprises. People aren’t always what they seem, especially when they’re offering me something I haven’t earned.”

She rubs his arm and then steps back. “I’m not going to push you, but you should stay a while and see what you think.”

“Stiles won’t like it.”

Her smile is enormous. “Don’t worry about Stiles. He feels safer when you’re here, and he won’t stay angry forever.”

But when they go inside, Stiles looks up from where he’s cutting up a banana for the cubs and says, “By the way, you’d better come inside and make nice at the Community Center tomorrow, because everyone there thinks you’re a p-e-d-o-p-h-i-l-e.”

“a-b-c-d-e-f-g!” Nicholas shouts, jostling the table. Abe makes no attempt to hide his laughter as he slides the cub’s cup away from the edge and tells him to finish his snack.

“So much like your father,” Elena says as moves past Stiles to reach the coffee, scenting him thoroughly in the process. “Of course that man raised a hopeless smart-mouth.”

“Hah. You should hear Derek,” Stiles grumbles, but there’s a note of apology in his tone.

Getting the little ones to bed takes up most of Elena’s and Abe’s evening. Derek wanders up to his room and inspects it closely, touching various objects and trying to imagine himself making this his home. Elena is a calm, stable Alpha building her pack for the right reasons—not because of an imminent threat or a need for power, but because of a desire to create something safe for these unexpected cubs. She makes decisions with thoughtful intent, including this house, a house built for wolves. An enormous window faces east, a view of the white barn Elena hadn’t taken him inside, and the forest, where the moon is beginning to rise. The windows have blackout shades and the bed is weighty, solid, built for mating.

It's been a long time since anything has brushed against his instincts with this kind of welcome. He sits in the wide, deeply-cushioned armchair next to the bed and looks out at the trees, quiet with indecision as he contemplates deception and how inept he’s been at seeing it in the past.

Stiles appears in the doorway and says, “Just so you know, you’re gonna hear some hair-raising shit tonight, so I hope you didn’t plan on getting good night’s sleep.”

The contempt rankles him. “Thanks for the warning.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not a favor. I just don’t want to get yelled at when I disrupt your beauty sleep.”

Derek wouldn’t mind yelling at him right now. Instead, he inhales through his nose and says, very quietly, “You think I sleep well, Stiles? Why do you think I left Beacon Hills? I’m not some bottomless receptacle for tragedy.”

Stiles sidles farther into the room, keeping his back against the wall for support. “You, wait, you left because of me?”

“Partly.”

He hadn’t expected an eager reception from Stiles, except it turns out that maybe he had. The Stiles he always conjures in his mind is difficult and sharply sarcastic and impulsive but _sweet_ underneath, and so open when he looks at Derek that it’s dangerous for them both. And it sucks to look at his face now and see only suspicion. It’s possible that Derek has destroyed his chances of ever finding more sweetness.

Stiles hovers for a moment, his eyes all over Derek in a way that makes him want to physically remove Stiles from the room, but eventually he turns and leaves the same way he entered—agitated, unhappy. The sound of his bedroom door closing settles Derek a bit, but he stays in the chair for a long time, watching the moon rise and waiting for the ache in his chest to recede.

Stiles’ predictions are correct. It’s barely past midnight when Derek wakes to what he thinks at first is a struggle and quickly realizes is Stiles’ troubled sleep and the worrying thunder of his pulse. Derek is on his feet before he even fully wakes, in Stiles’ room just in time to hear him make an agonized sound deep in his throat.

Before he can reach Stiles’ bed, the scream breaks free and Stiles is awake all at once, gasping for breath and murmuring to himself.

Unfortunately, now that Stiles is awake, Derek is left in the tenuous position of standing at the foot of the bed in the dark, which pushes the boundaries of propriety.

He whispers, “you okay?” just to announce his presence. He knows Stiles isn’t okay. Stiles responds with a groan but doesn’t object when Derek sits at the end of his bed.

There’s nothing to say. But Derek itches to _do_ something, something that will show Stiles he understands, that he’s not alone in this, so while Stiles tries to stifle all the broken little sounds he can’t stop making, Derek closes his hand around the bare foot that’s poking out from beneath the blankets. When there’s still no objection, Derek curls up at the end of the bed and brings Stiles’ feet into his lap, holds them tightly while stroking up and down the arches with his thumbs.

He stays there until Stiles falls asleep. Then Derek covers his feet with the blanket and goes back to bed.

In the morning, Derek can hear a lecture about the Battle of Stalingrad playing in Stiles’ room; he’d learned the night before that Stiles is going to finish high school online, and that he does most of his homework in the morning. Then he takes a class at the community center from 11-1 and works a shift there until six. His schedule is more structured than Derek would have expected, but structure is good. They could both use a little more of it.

Derek decides to visit the Community Center when Stiles’ class is finishing up, figuring there’ll be some sort of window before he starts work where Derek can make an appearance so everyone can just relax and not call the cops when they see him. He’s not crazy about the idea of convincing another town that he’s not a psychopath, but for now this is where he wants to be, so he tries to make his expression as neutral as possible as he jogs up to the front door to open the door for a woman trying to herd her three small sons inside.

Once inside, he recognizes the woman at the counter as the one who’d been whispering to Stiles yesterday. She’s got dark, chin-length hair that’s shaved close on one side, where she rubs as she scrutinizes him.

“Hi,” he says with his winningest smile. “Do you know where I can find Stiles?”

“You’re here for Stiles.”

“I’m Derek.”

She sighs. “Olivia. Stiles just finished Russell’s class in the studio.” She points toward a back hallway, where people are beginning to spill out into the lobby. Eventually, Stiles emerges with a guy about his own age. Derek watches as they talk quietly, heads close together as they look at a piece of paper angled away so he can’t see it.

He stifles the prickle of territorial awareness that starts at the back of his neck and moves across his shoulders. The guy he’s talking to is Philip, Derek knows from eavesdropping. Philip teaches a variety of string instruments at the Center. His dark, chin-length hair falls over his eyes as they talk, and when he brushes it back, smiling at Stiles, Derek looks away.

Finally, they straighten and Stiles slaps Philip on the shoulder before they part ways.

Stiles comes right to Derek and stands back just a little farther than he would have before. There’s a dark gray portfolio slung over his shoulder with a black vinyl strap. “Good to see you’re still in town.”

Derek is holding a cup from the coffee shop just down the street that he refuses to feel self-conscious about. “This is for you.” He thrusts it toward Stiles, who doesn’t reach for it.

“I’m off caffeine right now.”

“It’s hot chocolate.”

Stiles’ eyes widen but there’s still a hesitation before he snatches it from Derek’s hand with a lopsided smile. “This is weird. I mean, thanks, but this is definitely weird. Bringing me presents, not fleeing town without notice.” He holds the cup to his face and inhales deeply, then glares. “I accept your guilt-beverage and your borderline-inappropriate late-night foot rub, but that doesn’t mean I forgive you.” 

Derek follows him over to the reception counter and watches him crouch to stow his portfolio underneath. “I didn’t ask you to forgive me.”

Stiles pops up and braces his hands flat on the counter. They’re beautiful things, his hands, but Derek can see how they’re shaking a little and how hard he’s trying to hide it. “Why are you _here?_ Did my dad send you? Because, he thinks he _knows things,_ but he doesn’t always know the things he thinks he knows.”

Derek struggles with the opposing but equally powerful urges of manhandling Stiles and stepping back to slow the rapid surge of his pulse. There are already three feet of countertop between them; it’s not like Derek is actually going to do anything to him.

“I already told you why I’m here.”

Stiles just shakes his head slowly, eyes darting all over Derek’s face, clothes, then back up to his face. “I don’t believe you. I want to,” he adds when he sees something in Derek’s expression. “I’m just not on entirely good terms with my head right now. And I'm about to quote my therapist, the one who made me quit caffeine, so you should listen even though I know you’re going to hate it when I say Beacon Hills makes people feel like the things that happen there are normal. But they’re not, Derek. In reality, we’re all really damaged now, and that makes things like moving on and forgiving ourselves hard.”

“Stiles—what.”

Stiles turns his palms up in a helpless gesture. “I’m just saying I just went through about fourteen traumatic events, the last one being the most traumatic—maybe?—” For a second Derek thinks he's going to spin off on a tangent, but then he takes a deep breath and says, “—and so did you. More than me, even. With your family before and then, you know, your betas.”

“Stop it _._ ” Derek hates Stiles for bringing up his betas right now, when things are still so raw. He wants to bring his fists down on the counter, stop Stiles from talking about any of those things, and the only thing he can keep from doing it is to walk away.

“Anger is just a sign of denial!” Stiles calls after him.

It’s not that he forgot how infuriating Stiles is—how he says the things everyone wishes he wouldn’t because he can’t _not_ say something once it’s on his radar. The more uncomfortable the fact, the more he needs to say it. Derek always thought it was some sort of purging mechanism, making sure his head doesn’t collect a swarm of stinging thoughts, but it’s hard to find that degree of understanding and forgiveness when Stiles has just dragged all of Derek’s personal wounds into the open without warning, and in a public place.

He drives aimlessly—it’s a rural area, and as much as Stiles makes fun of him for it, he does like to drive in the country with the windows down.

By dusk, his edginess has subsided enough that he returns to the farm, but he doesn't go inside, and instead takes a walk through the closest section of the woods. He runs for a while, taking comfort in the familiarity of the woods, in being under the stars, crunching over dead leaves and hearing prey animals scatter. When he heads back toward the house he meets Stiles, who emerges from the white barn and flails with shock when he notices Derek.

Derek grabs the front of his sweatshirt to keep him from crashing into the edge of the barn door as Stiles first makes incoherent sounds and then yells “Jesus, you’ve got to be kidding me! Fuck, _Fuck_!” and shoves him away.

Derek stares stupidly at him in the dark for a few seconds, listening to his heart begin to _think_ about calming down. They stand there for a few more minutes, their breath clouding up the chilly air between them, until Derek can’t take the great wrenching frustration of the animosity between them—real animosity this time, and not just theatrics.

“I thought you’d be okay,” he says, finally. “When I left. You have all those people who love you, and you just needed to heal. I didn’t think you’d care.”

Stiles shoves his hands into his pockets and ducks his head to look at the ground. “Yeah, all those people who love me. Just because someone is willing to show up when you’re in immediate danger doesn’t mean they _love you_ , dude. I was alone, okay? I’ve always had Scott, but he’s not mine anymore, and I know that sounds totally possessive and unhealthy or whatever—Dr. Grant and I disagree on that point—but we were happily co-dependent my entire life, so it hurts to lose that. Belonging to somebody.”

He shuffles his feet in the leaves and shrugs. “You’re a lurker, Derek. Always skulking around and showing up without warning. Even when you were gone, it felt like you were there because you technically _could_ be, at any moment. And I started counting on that along the way, and then you left right when I was so—”

The scent of misery is heavy in the air; Derek doesn’t take his eyes off Stiles.

“Dr. Grant says I have a lot of shame about what happened. A lot of the books she gave me are for people who were like, assaulted, which is pretty fucked up, but I felt like I was a _plague_ and nobody was telling me any differently. You left right after you _looked at me,_ Derek, and you know what I’m talking about. You even touched my face like you were checking for something, and then you left—so yeah, my mind went to a lot of crazy places like you couldn’t stand to look at me. Like I ruined Beacon Hills for you.” Stiles is shivering and huddling into his hoodie and saying the kind of things only Stiles has the courage to say.

“Stiles,” he pleads, and when Stiles looks up to see what Derek is asking for, Derek folds Stiles into his arms, one hand splayed over the soft flannel of his cap as though he can protect him from his own destructive thoughts. With the other hand he covers the small of Stiles’ back and pulls him close, as close as they can get, and buries his face in Stiles’ shoulder, breathing in his sadness.

Stiles hugs him back; he even bends his head forward and lets Derek guide his face to the crook of his neck. Derek scratches his fingers into Stiles’ scalp, rubbing at the soft flannel with what he knows is going to come across as desperation, but he feels desperate right now—to make things right, to make Stiles feel how much he cares without admitting the extent of it.

“You didn’t ruin it,” Derek says into Stiles’ hoodie. It’s muffled, but still intelligible. “We didn’t ruin it. It was already there; it was going to happen with or without us.” It feels true for the first time, so Derek hugs Stiles tighter. “I did look at you that day, but I did it to see if you were okay. I thought you were okay.” After a second, after feeling the effect his words are having on Stiles, he adds, “I’m sorry.” It’s always been hard for him to apologize because the damage he causes is always too enormous for such a small phrase, but Stiles gives a little moan of acknowledgment and they stand there for long moments, saying nothing. It feels like forgiveness.

After another minute, Derek squeezes Stiles one last time and starts to pull away. “Abe just told Elena to come find us for dinner.”

Stiles sniffs against Derek’s jacket and extracts himself. “Better eat, then. I know you’re all ‘oh Alpha, my Alpha’ about her.”

Derek bristles a little, but mostly he feels warm and tentatively content. “Yeah. Let’s do it,” he says, and follows Stiles back to the house. 

When Derek goes downstairs the next morning, Elena is wearing a plaid flannel robe over her nightgown and as soon as she sees Derek, she plops the baby into his arms. “Shower,” she calls over her shoulder, and Derek is on his own. Stiles is upstairs studying, Nicholas is still asleep, and Abe is out in the white barn.

The baby’s name is Mae. She’s agreeable, curious, and just into the toddler stage. She’s a bit small for her age; when Derek smooths a hand over her head, it’s warm and fresh and only just the size of his hand. She’s dense with wolf cub smell, which weakens over the first few years, but he can’t look away from her bright brown eyes and plump cheeks. He moves to the sofa and settles her on his lap. She’s easy, and is still morning-sleepy as she curls against his chest and stuffs her thumb into her mouth, dozing off right away. The weight of her feels good, as though he’s doing something important—as though someone trusts him enough to keep her safe.

Dinner had been short the night before. Abe and Elena did most of the talking, and for the rest of the meal, they had been entertained by Nicky’s observations about the food and the day. Stiles was mostly quiet, other than answering Elena’s questions about how his drawing class had gone. Apparently the community center class Stiles had been taking was an art course he’d taken first at the suggestion of his therapist and then continued because he liked it so much.

Later, Derek’s sleep had been interrupted by Stiles’ screams, and again he let Derek rub his feet until he fell back asleep. 

He can’t stop thinking about Stiles last night outside the barn, and the way his scent had changed as he warmed to Derek, maybe started to forgive him. Derek forces himself to focus on that, and not on what he’d learned: there hadn’t been a _moment_ between them back in the Stilinski kitchen; there had just been Derek projecting his feelings all over a traumatized, self-conscious kid.

He’s avoiding thinking about that when his phone buzzes. With one hand, careful not to disturb Mae, he checks the message, which is from Noah.

_Stiles is under the impression I’ve forced you to_  
_find him and be his “babysitter.” Let’s get that_  
_cleared up ASAP_

Derek tosses the phone onto the coffee table.

“No. It is too early for this,” Stiles declares from the bottom of the stairs, one hand slapped over his eyes. “You are not just sitting on the sofa playing mommy.”

Derek frowns. “Daddy _,_ ” he corrects, offended by Stiles’ general attitude.

Stiles’ mouth falls open and his cheeks pink up. “Okay, no. Anyone else and I’d say fine, point taken, but Derek Hale does not get to casually tell people he’s _daddy_ and expect us not to just. . .” He makes a motion like his head is exploding. 

Luckily, Elena comes trotting downstairs, fully dressed in a red turtleneck tucked into tight-fitting jeans. Her hair has been divided into two wild bundles of curls at the nape of her neck; she looks bright and beautiful and Derek feels a pull toward her, a longing for her approval, which he receives from the fond look she gives him as she takes in the sleeping cub on his chest.

“I don’t have to tell you what an ass you’re being, right?” She swats Stiles on the back of the head. “We all take care of the little ones, you included.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Stiles says, but doesn’t stop staring at Derek. He’s always stared like this. At first, it had been unnerving to Derek, for a human to look so long and hard without it being an act of aggression. By now he’s used to Stiles’ open interest, the way his gaze lingers on Derek longer than anyone else, as though there’s something he thinks is worth seeing.

For the next few weeks Stiles is a very slow thaw, with the occasional unpredictable flare of warmth that spills out and has every chance of cooling before the next time Derek sees him. The only time Derek can count on him _not_ lashing out is in the middle of the night or early morning, when Derek is at the end of his bed. These times, he stays quiet and accepts the apology that Derek pours into every press of his hands into the soles of Stiles’ feet.

Derek has figured out that Stiles works with Abe in the white barn every evening after work for two hours, except for Thursdays, when he has therapy. Stiles also works by himself on the top floor of the barn. He plays music while he’s up there, sometimes singing along, sometimes working through long periods of silence. Derek knows he’s working on whatever he keeps in the portfolio that accompanies him to Russell’s drawing class in the studio, but he hasn’t shared anything with Derek and Derek hasn’t asked.

To keep himself busy, Derek helps Abe and Elena with the farm work; readying the gardens for winter and doing repairs they haven’t had time for since they brought the cubs home. It keeps him outdoors and he’s good at it. Most days, he brings lunch to Stiles after his drawing class and if it’s not raining, they eat at one of the picnic tables out back, off the path to the all-purpose sports field. Sometimes they eat in silence, which isn’t bad, but sometimes Stiles’ old chattiness surfaces and they even laugh.

Derek has started jabbing back when Stiles takes shots at him, which seems to have helped restore their usual cadence and eased Stiles’ suspicion that Derek is on some altruistic mission of pity.

The rest of the time, Derek reads or plays with the cubs. Nicholas attaches himself to Derek as much as possible, always trying to climb on Derek and command his attention. Twice now, Derek has buckled him into his car seat and brought him to the community center to visit Stiles. Both times, Stiles had flailed with excitement when Derek arrived, and the second time he’d even leaned over the counter for a half-hug where Derek could feel the press of Stiles' fingertips into the back of his shoulder.

Derek wants to see what happens if he brings him a third time.

Tonight, Stiles and Derek are babysitting while Elena and Abe do business in town and then get dinner and a movie. It’s mid-November and already cold. They’ve just given the cubs a bath and have, at Nicholas’ insistence, pushed aside the coffee table to make a nest of blankets and pillows on the family room floor.

Derek braces himself as the quick thud-thud-thud of Nicholas’ heels against the floor approaches. He’s been wound up all evening by the excitement of having sitters for the first time. When runs into the room, he leaps up onto the sofa and then onto Derek’s shoulders, yelling “Cowboy!”

Stiles is scrolling through Elena’s video library, trying to find the cowboy movie they promised to watch with him with Mae curled on his lap, clutching a teddy bear dressed in a mouse costume.

Nicholas leans forward and does his best at scent-marking Derek from this angle, at which Derek growls and flips the cub forward, catching him and smiling at the squeals of delight. When they’re finished wrestling and Nicholas has scrambled back up onto his shoulders, they’re both disheveled and Stiles is staring at him with an incredulous look Derek refuses to take personally.

“Uh, I got the cowboy thing,” Stiles says, gesturing at the tv with the remote.

“I’m a cowboy,” Nicholas tells Stiles. “No horses, a wolf cowboy. Teeth!”

Tiny hands wrap around Derek’s head for leverage as Nicholas tries to peer around and pry his mouth open, but Derek is absolutely not going to play this game in front of Stiles, the one where Nicholas demands teeth or claws and to his endless delight, Derek complies. “Teeth!” he pleads, practically climbing on Derek’s head now.

Derek plucks him from where he’s clinging and sets him on a cushion in front of the tv. “Not right now.”

“Sorry,” Stiles says, his mouth open in the exaggerated way it always is when he thinks he’s seeing something incredible or shocking or blatantly horrible. “I just need a minute to reconcile this wolf-on-demand babysitter with all the roaring and throat-slashing and disembowling people.”

“Not _people._ And I can still rip your throat out with my teeth.”

“Sorry, dude. It’s not as threatening when you’re playing horsey with a toddler.”

“No horses, Stiles,” Nicholas says, looking away from the screen to scowl at him. “Wolf cowboys ride wolfs.”

Stiles laughs into the soft fur of Mae’s head, his voice a little hoarse from all the sleepless nights. Derek can tell by the way Stiles handles the cubs that he likes them, too, that he’s receiving the benefits of a big family for the first time, and maybe Noah was right about what a bad decision it had been to turn down Elena’s original offer.

But if he hadn’t, Derek wouldn’t be here right now.

The cubs fall asleep before their movie is over. Derek ends up watching it with Stiles, soothed by the light pattern Stiles drums onto the soft green flannel of Mae’s pajamas. After they’ve tucked them into bed, they return to the living room where instead of starting to clean up, Stiles collapses into the pile of bedding.

Derek turns off the overhead lights and puts a cooking competition on the television. Stiles likes these because he can make scathing comments to the contestants and nobody complains about him talking over the plot. He perks up when it comes on, and when Derek joins him in the nest they’ve made on the floor, looks up from where he’s been plucking anxiously at the teddy bear's mouse ears. The thing about Stiles is that he seems as anxious when Derek gets close as when he goes away, which doesn’t leave a lot of options.

“Look at this. No self-respecting bear would dress as a mouse. What purpose could this possibly serve for the bear?”

Derek takes it from his hands and tosses it onto the pillow pile. “None. It’s for Mae. She doesn’t overthink things like you do.” 

“In a way, that was a compliment about my hardworking brain, which I happily accept.” Stiles is sitting close enough that Derek can feel the occasional thrum of magic along with Stiles’ pulse. He senses it nearly constantly now, nearly as powerful as what he gets from Abe, but with pleasant currents grounded in earth-magic. Stiles’ magic feels like it was grown from the forest and feels more substantial than Abe’s heady ozone static, which pings Derek in a peripheral sense but doesn’t rile him.

The energy coursing beneath his skin does something to Derek; it makes Stiles _more Stiles,_ somehow, every part of him magnified, and Derek can’t believe there aren’t mobs of people clamoring for his attention. Right now, his head is tipped back to rest on the back of the sofa, exposing the backward curve of his throat.

Stiles shoots him a suspicious glance. “What?”

“You’re getting strong.”

At that, Stiles rolls his head to the side to look at Derek.

“You can feel it? Elena said you might be able to. What does it feel like?”

“It’s an awareness, like knowing the person lying next to you is awake without needing to check.”

“No, I mean what do _I_ feel like.”

Derek runs a finger down a bare section of Stiles’ bicep into the crook of his elbow, as though he needs to touch to answer the question _. This_ riles him, but he can’t do anything except withdraw his finger and answer. “It feels like you, but concentrated. You, and clean magic.”

“That’s so cool.” Stiles shivers once and rubs his arm where Derek has just touched him. “I’m stronger since you got here,” he says as though he’s not sure he wants Derek to know. 

“Me too. That’s how packs work.”

“Sure, in theory. But hello, human here, and magic is unpredictable. I never thought I’d feel an actual difference based on the size of my pack.” He pauses to snicker. “Sorry,” he says, but breaks into laughter again. Derek rolls his eyes.

It’s the perfect time to bring up how much this settles Derek, how much he needs this to anchor him, but he can’t do it. Admitting that part would make it necessary to address to the other part—the part where Derek has fallen into the habit of touching Stiles without his permission and even now is flushed with warmth from just that one point of contact. They sit in silence for a few more minutes, watching amateur bakers talk to the cameras about their philosophies on kneading techniques for a while before Stiles inches just close enough that their shoulders lean together.

“You’re really staying?”

The question is heartbreakingly quiet, as though he isn’t sure he even wants Derek to hear. When Derek glances over, Stiles is worrying his lower lip between his teeth. His knuckles, on the floor between them, brush the side of Derek’s thigh.

“I’m staying, Stiles.” It isn’t enough. Every time Derek shows up at the community center or returns to the farmhouse, he can see the obvious relief in Stiles’ expression. He’s not sure of Derek yet.

“C’mere.” Derek puts his arm around Stiles’ shoulders and pulls him close so they can rest together in the cozy nest. In this position, Stiles’ head rests on Derek’s shoulder. “I’m staying, okay?”

Stiles exhales a long breath. “Yeah,” he says, and relaxes against Derek. “Okay.”

Every day Derek thinks about leaving, and every day Derek wonders where he would go, and why. He came here for Stiles, who—of course—came attached to a werewolf pack that feels every bit as welcoming as Stiles at his most affectionate. In fact, Elena and Abe seem to want him there more than Stiles does.

Derek drops Stiles off at work as he’s started occasionally doing, and heads back to the farm to pick up Abe for a delivery to the next town. They’ve traveled together a few times for similar deliveries, probably because he feels safer with Derek when he’s delivering magical goods—potions or herbs or whatever it is he works on in the white barn. When things are less weird with Stiles, Derek wants to know more about what they can do.

Abe reminds Derek of Scott—he’s easygoing and takes everything in stride. Abe seems a little more cerebral—not that Derek would ever say that to Stiles, who would be terribly offended on Scott’s behalf—but other than that, he gives off the relaxed, balanced energy of an old hippie, which Derek finds comforting. He likes that Abe wants him along on these trips. The farm is a lot even without the cubs or the side occult-business, and he likes being needed. There’s a place for him in this pack, if he can keep from fucking it up.

“Nicky can’t stop talking about staying home with you guys last night,” Abe says after they’ve made their drop-off and are headed back home. It’s late afternoon and will be dark when Derek picks up Stiles from therapy. 

“He’s got some pretty specific ideas about cowboys.”

Abe laughs. “The wolf thing? That kid is a trip. Elena said it’s pretty normal at this age. Were you like that?”

Derek nods, thinking about the book he and Laura and a few others it still hurts to think about had painstakingly created with crayon and paper and tape—ten chapters of wolf-related adventures, and on the cover a giant moon Derek had drawn himself.

“We all were. Not cowboys, but astronauts so we could get to the moon—” He doesn’t finish because a deer is suddenly halfway through the windshield, screeching tires and breaking glass and a centrifugal force so strong Derek has to brace himself against it. Then comes the pain, an agonized cry from Abe, and everything is quiet.

Derek pulls a set of antlers out of his chest before he can register what’s happened. By the time he understands that they’ve hit a deer and spun out off the main road, his body has knit itself back together, but Abe doesn’t have the same ability. In the passenger seat, he’s grasping around for purchase and breathing with difficulty that would be audible even to a human.

Derek grabs the deer by the antlers, breaks its neck, and shoves it out the windshield, where it remains on the hood, wedged against the tree that stopped them. This is definitely the end of Derek’s truck.

Then he unfastens Abe’s seat belt.

Abe is definitely bleeding; the smell is overwhelming. He’s broken his arm for sure and it sounds like there’s an internal issue, which is the worst thing to be happening right now because Derek cannot lose another pack member. He can’t find his phone, nor Abe’s, and he’s afraid to move Abe to try and find it. There’s a pitch to Derek’s panic that he can’t think about right now—it has to do with how much he’s started to count on Abe, how he likes the way Abe trusts him to do important work and then tells him he’s done a good job. All of this makes Derek feel a little out of control.

He's very aware that he’s not an Alpha anymore and can’t turn Abe to save him.

“I’m going for help,” he tells Abe, who is holding very still.

Derek flags down the first car he sees, and they get an ambulance out to Abe before he loses consciousness. Derek rides with him, clutching Abe’s hand in his own like they’re something to each other. Halfway there, Derek remembers Stiles, and feels vaguely sick. He’s not going to make it. There’s not even a way to get a message to him—Stiles is going to figure it out on his own.

At the hospital, Derek can’t do anything but stand uselessly in the waiting room. Abe had given Elena’s phone number to one of the EMT’s, but they’re still an hour out from the farm, so it takes her a while to arrive. By the time she does, it’s an hour past the time Derek was supposed to pick up Stiles. 

He can’t stop imagining Stiles standing outside Dr. Grant’s office until he realizes Derek isn’t coming. Stiles has only just stopped giving him skeptical glances all the time.

Derek is letting down every single person in his pack right now, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

But when Elena does arrive, she isn’t angry. Instead, she exudes relief and gratitude when she hugs Derek, hands over the cubs, and orders him home. 

It all seems anti-climactic. In the back of Elena’s station wagon, the kids babble like they normally would and Derek focuses on the road, trying not to think about Abe’s oddly-angled arm or the blood that had matted up his mustache in the ambulance while Derek squeezed his hand. It’s only safe to take a human’s pain if they’ve already been diagnosed or if there’s nothing that can be done for them, so he hadn’t been able to do anything useful, yet Abe had looked at him like _he_ was some kind of anchor.

As he drives, he can’t stop looking at the time, thinking about how long Stiles might have waited for him and what he’d looked like when he realized Derek wasn’t coming. He needs his phone—he should have called Stiles when he was with Elena, but everything had been so frantic that he’d just bundled up the cubs and focused on getting them home.

By the time they reach the farm, Mae is asleep in her carseat and the porch lights are on. Derek turns off the ignition and listens for Stiles—upstairs in his room, crying with miserable unchecked sobs that he wouldn’t want Derek to hear.

It feels like it takes forever to get both cubs out, carry Mae without waking her, and put her down in bed. After that, Derek puts Nicky on the sofa in front of another cowboy show, this time a cartoon, and tells him not to move until he comes back downstairs.

Then he goes to Stiles. He stops outside the door and listens, despairing at Stiles’ broken sounds. The worst part is that he’s been here alone. Just because Derek has done right by Abe, Elena, and the cubs doesn’t mean he’s done right by Stiles. It feels like maybe he’s running out of chances, which makes him ache the way he always does when he’s losing something.

He breaks the lock to get in Stiles’ room.

“What the fuck?” Stiles demands when the door opens, the demand ruined by the sob in his throat. He looks wrecked, today’s pain bleeding into all the old pain, all the times he’s ever been left behind, in a pattern Derek knows too well. When he stumbles up from the bed, his eyes are swollen, cheeks wet. He’s messy and anguished and Derek is gutted by the creak in his voice when he says, “Where the fuck were you, Derek? I thought you were gone, you unreliable, manipulative asshole.”

Derek gets as close as he thinks Stiles will allow—nearly in touching distance. “There was an accident. I came as soon as I could.” 

Stiles glances over his bloody shirt before his face crumples again. He turns away from Derek and wipes his hand over his face as though he can wipe away the misery. Derek can see his shoulders shaking as he cries, which horrifies him and gives him the same cold, sick feeling in his belly as when he found Stiles’ bedroom empty back in Beacon Hills.

“Just go,” Stiles manages to say with a sniff. “It’s fine, just—I really hate you sometimes, Derek. I hate—” He hiccups a little and makes a few more wet sounds. “I hate your whole ‘lone wolf’ routine that means you can skip town whenever.”

“I’m not leaving.”

Derek moves closer, desperate to make things better but reluctant to say it. It’s too much. It could freak Stiles out even more than the idea of Derek leaving. But Stiles’ sound of disbelief is fueled by all the hurt Derek never wanted to inflict on him, so there’s nothing he can do but give up at least part of what he’s been trying to keep safe.

“I promise, Stiles. I won’t leave because I _can’t_.”

He's vaguely aware of his own harsh breathing and that he probably looks deranged—his skin feels damp and his eyes too wide with panic. The worst part is the only thing that could calm him would be to touch Stiles—to physically have his hands on him—but he can’t risk it. Stiles has turned back toward him with a wary posture and his arms crossed high up over his chest, hands tucked under his arms.

“Can’t _leave_ or can’t leave me specifically?” 

“Stiles. . .”

“Seriously? I had to walk back to the community center and beg for a ride home; I came home to _nobody_. If you can’t share this one piece of tiny but vital information then maybe _you’re_ the one who needs therapy.”

Derek flinches. He needs a minute to regroup, but Stiles is here right _now_.

“Great talk. Thanks-“

“ _You_ ,” Derek interrupts. “Obviously. I begged your dad to help me find you and then I _moved in._ ” He raises his eyebrows and waits for Stiles to get it. “You’re my anchor, Stiles. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to feel obligated to do anything, but it is literally impossible for me to not want to be as close to you as I can get.”

Stiles stares at him some more and Derek can’t read his expression. Shock is a big part of it, and still a lot of sadness mixed with something else.

Derek takes in all the traces of Stiles’ unhappiness—the redness around his eyes and nose, the way his voice is hoarse and wobbles just a little when he says, “Really? Because you’re pretty far away right now.”

With an exhalation of relief that emerges as an embarrassingly desperate noise, Derek yanks him close and, holding Stiles’ head with both hands, rubs his beard on Stiles’ neck the way he’s been wanting to, roughing it against his jaw and down to his collarbone. The incredible thing is that Stiles, who _hated_ him just a minute ago, accepts it and puts his hands in Derek’s hair with a hard touch that’s exactly what he would have asked for if he were in the habit of asking for things.

The closest he can come to asking is to push into it and hold Stiles closer.

Stiles’ skin smells of all the elements at once—ocean air, forest moss, and the occasional smoky note as though he was smudged at birth and left outside on the coast. This is overlain with ink and herbs from the white barn, cubs and pack and the community center, all such good things that Derek worries he won’t be able to pry his face off Stiles long enough to get anything done.

“This is why I came, all right?” Derek says into the hair just at Stiles’ temple, where it’s soft and feathery. “It pisses me off when you say I’m here because of your dad or some other reason. I came because of this; I know you feel unstable right now but something inside you makes _me_ feel stable, and that hasn’t changed. Is that okay?” 

“Yeah,” Stiles says in a breathless voice that has a trace of laughter in it. “Yes! God, why didn’t you just tell me in the first place? Like I’d say no to someone wanting me around.”

“Everyone in this house wants you around.” Derek hates the amount of emotion he injects into the statement, so he immediately pulls back, only to find Stiles beaming at him.

“Derek, that’s, wow. That’s so cool. You just got all in touch with your feelings and told me I matter to you, which means I’ll have to take back a lot of stuff I said about you to Dr. Grant, but it’s totally worth it. And _shit_ I just realized you said there was an accident.”

“Yeah.” Derek lets go of Stiles. “A deer came through the windshield and we went off the road. Abe is hurt but probably okay. I’d know more if I hadn’t lost my phone.”

“What about the kids? I should text Elena.”

“They’re downstairs. You should call.”

They go downstairs and Derek makes Nicholas dinner while listening in on the call. Abe is going to be okay, aside from a broken arm, a pneumothorax, and a lot of bruising. Elena talks to Nicholas and promises to check in tomorrow, insisting Derek and Stiles not think about her or Abe, and instead concentrate on the cubs. Stiles seems offended and insists they can do both, until finally she uses her Alpha voice and Stiles returns with a sarcastic comment. They bicker lightly for a few minutes until Mae awakens with a disoriented wail, at which point Stiles turns obedient and Elena, finally satisfied, ends the call.

“ _Diapers_. No thank you!” Stiles comes into the kitchen with a disdainful expression, Mae toddling delicately behind him. After he washes his hands at the sink, he steals a piece of pita from the plate Derek is making for Nicholas.

“I’ll get the next one.” Derek replaces the pita and adds a dollop of hummus, nervous about what he’s about to bring up. “Can you put Mae in her chair? Her plate’s ready and her cup is on the table.”

After Stiles has swooped her up and gotten a few giggles, he lands a quick flurry of kisses on her cheek and straps her into the chair at the same time with more skill than either Derek or Abe have ever demonstrated. Derek frowns and goes back to Nicholas’ plate. He whistles for Nicholas the way Elena always does at mealtime, and while he’s getting him settled in, says, “Do you know where the cubs sleep every night?”

“What, with Elena and Abe? I thought about that. Your bed is pretty big; do you wanna take them?”

“I was planning on it. But I usually get up with you, so it might just be easier if we all slept there.”

Stiles hums thoughtfully to cover his real reaction, an annoyingly effective trick he learned shortly after Derek met him. He rarely remembers to employ it, which makes it more unsettling that he’s doing it now.

“Are you sure I won’t disturb them?”

“I can wake you before you make any noise.”

Stiles shrugs and nods, but Derek can hear the speed of his pulse—fast and faster.

“Look!” Nicholas says, his voice distorted. When Derek and Stiles look, he’s smiling widely to display two of the beef strips Derek had carefully sautéed hanging from his elongated canines, eyes closed with happiness. “I did this,” he says, and promptly loses both strips. 

“Oh, buddy.” Stiles laughs and bends to retrieve the meat as Derek says, “You’re eating those.”

Derek isn’t sure how he feels about Stiles getting such a close look at what it’s like to grow up as a werewolf, and of course Stiles isn’t missing a beat. It’s a little embarrassing, only because Stiles is so insistent that Derek sprang from the womb with a leather jacket and a thirst for blood. That image of him, while not flattering, is a lot more impressive than the truth—that Derek isn’t being silent because he’s the keeper of mysteries but rather because he’s so afraid of something he’s said being used against him.

Sure enough, Stiles brings it up after they’ve gone to bed.

“So was there a ‘no playing with your werewolf powers at the table’ rule when you were growing up?”

Derek shifts his arm above his pillow and thumps Stiles on the forehead, taking care not to jab Mae with his elbow. “Shut up. And of course there was. Manners.”

He can hear Stiles thinking about this. There are about to be a million questions, each more invasive than the last. The cubs have been asleep for about twenty minutes, but a new sleeping arrangement means it’ll be a while before Stiles can settle in. Derek, too. It’s been ages since Derek has slept like this with other wolves and it feels really, really good. He feels wide-awake.

“Does that rule apply to other places, too?” Stiles asks.

Derek reviews the question twice, a heavy silence simmering between them.

After far too long, he clears his throat. “What are you asking?”

The question doesn’t deter Stiles. “You know,” he says, and Derek listens closely. That heartbeat gives so much away. “In bed, the bedroom. Sex.” Stiles sighs and fidgets on his side of the mattress. “I mean, is it considered _bad manners_ or is it strongly encouraged?”

Of course Stiles would come to bed wanting information about the filthier aspects of werewolf sex. Derek’s blood quickens, his body reacting to the topic and having Stiles right here with his scent in the bedclothes.

“It’s considered extremely bad manners,” he says firmly. “And so is talking about it in front of children. Now go to sleep.”

It takes a while, but Stiles eventually falls asleep. He only has nightmares once, at which point Derek wakes him with a hand spread over his chest. The cubs don’t stir at all until morning.

After that, saying Derek feels stronger is an understatement. It’s not just about strength; he feels _good_. When Elena and Abe come home from the hospital, an alignment is there that wasn’t before. It’s been four days and Stiles hasn’t gone back to his own bed yet—everyone sleeps better when Derek can wake him quickly. There hadn’t even been a discussion about it; Stiles just showed up in Derek’s bed the next night and went to sleep after a long stream of consciousness ramble about how the public library keeps stealing all the community center’s cool ideas.

The window of time between when Stiles gets in bed and when he actually falls asleep is very dangerous. A lot of _questions_ come to him while he’s trying to empty his mind. Derek keeps telling himself he’s going to wait until Stiles is asleep to join him but every time Stiles crawls onto the bed and does his happy bedtime-at-last moan into the pillow, Derek can’t get his pajamas on fast enough.

Tonight, Stiles seems to already have something in mind before he gets in bed.

“You’re getting something out of this, right? This arrangement, or whatever. Because the way I see it—” He grimaces and shakes out his right hand, which cramps when he’s been drawing for too long. “You gave up your bed and your sleep and spend your time working the fields and feeding the hungriest children I’ve ever met. You don’t get paid, and I hate to break it to you, but this all describes the life of an indentured servant.”

Derek considers this, mildly confused. Maybe Stiles really does think Derek needs danger and violence to thrive, in which case he doesn’t know him nearly as well as Derek assumed. Every single thing Stiles just listed contributes in its own way to Derek’s current state of contentment—purpose, pack, and the object of his affection in bed with him every night. A talon of doubt hooks Derek just beneath the ribcage. No response seems appropriate, so he settles on, “I get paid.”

Stiles scuffles with the blankets in an attempt to curl onto his side. “Really? That’s cool. This is okay, right? I know it’s supposed to be gauche to talk about money but you never seemed like the type to care about that kind of thing, based on—no offense—your prior living arrangements.”

Derek snorts. “I don’t care, but Abe’s business does well and he’s a fair man. But you’re trying to apply human norms to a werewolf pack, which works even less on a pack of born wolves. Even if they didn’t pay me, it’d be fine.”

“Because you have so much money?”

“No. Even if I didn’t have anything, it wouldn’t matter. I’d be doing the same thing—deliveries for Abe’s business, working the farm, teaching the cubs. Elena would provide whatever I needed.”

Stiles mulls this over, inching closer until his jaw rests on Derek’s shoulder. “Hmm. So you’re happy, then? You like this?” _This_ could mean so much. The topic at hand, the press of Stiles’ chin, the current of magic that changes when Derek touches him—thickens, matures like a ripe late-autumn gourd from the garden, sweet sustenance encased in armor. Does Stiles even know? Sometimes, Derek wishes he was the one free to ask questions. _Do you want me? How much can I touch without scaring you?_

“I like it,” he says firmly, and tilts his head so Stiles’ is nestled in the crook of his shoulder. The smooth plane of Stiles’ forehead is right next to Derek’s mouth, soft tendrils of hair and even softer skin. Unusually daring, Derek drops a kiss just above his eyebrow and laughs at the strangled sound Stiles makes in response.

Maybe he needs a _little_ danger. 

Beneath the covers, he feels Stiles stretching and rubbing at his right hand again.

“You’ve been overdoing it.”

Stiles pulls his hand out from under the blanket and holds it up, flexing so his fingers curve away from his palm. “The Center’s open house is in a couple weeks and they always put up a show in the art studio. Russell wants me to have something complete.”

Derek reaches for his hand, which Stiles easily offers.

He turns Stiles’ fine hand palm-up and presses into the flesh with his thumb, which earns him a yelp and a glare, followed by an involuntary “ _Ah_ ” as Derek finds his pressure point. Derek backs off and begins to work at the tiny knots, alternating between pressing in deep and rubbing around the edges, trying to coax the muscle into relaxing. 

And Stiles lets him do it. Without complaint, he lies there and allows Derek to hold his hand and study it as though it’s the only thing that matters in the world, this soothing of Stiles’ overworked hands. It’s like when he used to rub Stiles’ feet after a nightmare, a habit that abruptly ended when they started sharing a bed. It seemed like an appropriate boundary at the time, but Derek doesn’t care anymore. If he wants to use his hands to make Stiles feel better, then he will.

He pulls at each of Stiles’ fingers, one by one, more matter-of-fact than he feels, enjoying the way Stiles’ posture has gone slack, head tipped loosely to the side on his pillow. He shivers when Derek draws a line between the bones in his palm, exhales when he prods at muscle, sighs, and says, “There, right there,” when Derek sends gentle pulses of pressure into the fleshiest part of his palm. His scent has gone warm and pheromone-laden; Derek tries not to be too obvious about breathing it in.

When he goes particularly deep, Stiles face goes slack and he groans. “This is so good. No one’s ever done this for me.” 

“You never sit still long enough.”

Derek normally thinks of Stiles’ hands as unattainable things—there’s no way to touch them without it being a declaration—but right now he’s being allowed to touch, so he tries to make it count. “Open up, keep it relaxed,” he says quietly as he first cups Stiles’ hand with his left and then with his right rolls his knuckles across and deeply down into the muscle. 

“I hope Elena isn’t listening in,” Stiles says, breathlessly, between two long sounds of satisfaction. Derek rolls his eyes and bites lightly at Stiles’ palm before he releases it and lies back down.

“Ha, I thought you said that was considered extremely bad manners.” 

“ _This_ would be bad manners.” Derek takes back the hand and, eyes alight just for show, scrapes one pointed tooth over the pad of Stiles’ finger. In the moment it feels playful, like a continuation of what they’ve been doing, easy affection, but he instantly knows it was too much. If he hadn’t known from the fact that he _just put Stiles’ finger in his mouth,_ he would have known from Stiles’ reaction, which is part fear and part embarrassment, judging by his heartbeat and the unusual silence that follows.

Derek clenches his jaw and stares at the ceiling, waiting as the silence stretches into something grotesque. Just because Stiles likes to make suggestive jokes in bed doesn’t mean anything; he probably used to do the same thing with Scott and assumed that Derek, like Scott, would _refrain from putting Stiles’ goddamned finger in his mouth._

“Sorry,” he says finally.

“No, no, I mean. Thanks for the—my hand is going to sleep great tonight.” Stiles swallows too loudly, and after a moment, noticeably relaxes. “Night, Derek.”

Derek can admit to himself that he’s avoiding Stiles for the next few days, but circumstances make it easy to do. Abe is still on bed rest, which means he spends most of the day on the sofa while the cubs use him as a jungle gym and Derek takes care of the farm. He feeds the chickens and shovels the new snow off from the driveway, then creates a path from the house to every landmark on the farm: white barn, equipment barn, greenhouse, chicken coop, and back shed. If he doesn’t have time to bring Stiles lunch or go to bed while Stiles is still awake, there’s good reason.

He manages to go Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday only seeing Stiles in passing, but on Saturday, he’s bringing a load of firewood in from the shed and when he passes the door to the white barn, it opens. Stiles sticks his head out.

“Hey! Derek, hey. I know you’ve been busy, but take a break, man. Come see my, uh.” Stiles’ nose is starting to pink up from the cold. He rubs at his arms and gives a sharp laugh. “Dr. Grant thinks it’s weird I haven’t shown you any of my drawings yet.”

Holy shit: Derek is about to be invited into the white barn. “I didn’t think therapists were allowed to make calls like that.”

Stiles laughs, this time for real. “Busted. Fine; let’s just say she asked a series of questions that led me to that conclusion. This is a therapy-sponsored offer, okay? To remove it would rob me of valuable emotional progress, Derek.”

It’s dramatic, but Stiles is being sincere, so Derek dumps the wood where he stands and follows Stiles inside. Downstairs is as aromatic as he expected: herbs drying in bundles along the walls, shelves lined with jars brimming with animal, plant, mineral. Smoke. There’s a small counter, sink and kitchen table in the corner. He takes it all in as he follows Stiles upstairs to the loft, which has high privacy walls and a large drawing desk. There’s an old overstuffed loveseat in the corner, an overhead light and desk lamp, and that’s about it.

Stiles flits around straightening papers and possibly working up to a panic attack, knocks a pack of colored pencils on the floor, and scrambles to collect them. “I started as part of this art therapy book,” he says, shoving a sheath of papers at Derek. “Then it kind of evolved into a graphic novel. Or it will, eventually. It’s not in order yet,” he adds, and thrusts his hands into his back pockets as though to trigger some invisible brakes on his mouth.

Derek studies the pages carefully, taking in the stylized frames and Stiles’ stark ink illustrations. It turns out Stiles communicates as well with images as he does with words. A lot of it is familiar: Beacon Hills, the characters, the violence, but it’s been cleansed of any supernatural elements and infused with humor. They’re all black and white, save a few frames with Lydia in full color. Near the bottom of the stack are a few colorful pages that depict Stiles and Scott as boys—these are pretty funny, and Derek smiles at a few of them.

He flips more quickly through the pages and realizes he’s looking for himself. There’s a character frequently in the background that he swears is his own shape—a dark silhouette at the edges of the story, so constant that there’s no denying his importance, but never referenced by the others or drawn in full detail.

He’ll have to think later about what that means. Right now, Stiles is waiting for his reaction.

“It’s good,” he says, lifting his gaze from the page to see Stiles’ flustered expression. “Funny. You’re good at this.” He’s drawn back to the top page, Gerard Argent as a villain drawn through the lens of revisionist history. It’s all been drawn that way, but there’s still a wholeness to its truth. Stiles’ isolation is a running theme, even in the frames crowded with characters.

“Yeah?” Stiles seems pleased but still nervous. “I’m still pretty new to doing it with, y’know, _intent,_ but I like it. Love it, actually.” He says the last bit with an edge of defiance, as though he expects Derek to object.

He would never object, even though he doesn’t like what he sees. In his mind, he and Stiles are bound to each other through history and a kind of mutual understanding, but the evidence is here in paper and ink: through Stiles’ eyes, he’s peripheral— _a lurker,_ Stiles had said—and so ambiguous he could be almost anyone.

But then there was Stiles’ breakdown when he thought Derek left. At the time it seemed promising, had seemed like proof of Stiles’ devotion, but now Derek doesn’t know what to make of it.

“What?” Stiles says. Whatever he sees has his heart racing, face pale. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Derek says quickly, and cringes at how harsh it sounds. It’s not like he can demand to know where he fits into Stiles’ story after Stiles has made it so clear over and over again—Lydia and Scott in all their color, while Derek doesn’t even have a _face._

It’s a stupid thing to be pissed off about. It’s stupid to be pissed off about anything right now. “Really, nothing,” he says firmly. “Thank you for letting me see these.”

Stiles nods, peering at Derek’s face as though he’s still trying to figure out what just happened. “Sure, no problem. Anytime. Really, if you ever want to hang out while I’m working, or—” He gestures around at the loft. “Mi studio es su studio.”

It’s the weekend, so by eleven, when Abe and Elena go to bed, Stiles is still wandering around downstairs in pajamas, idly poking around the kitchen for food and browsing Netflix. Derek is trying to read the novel Abe just finished so they can talk about it, but Stiles keeps distracting him with his constant commentary and the way he’s wearing thin pajama pants with no underwear.

Derek stares at the words on the page for a full minute before he lets his gaze drift up over the edge of the book. Stiles’ pheromones are ridiculous—worse than Derek even remembers from before the farm, though not facing imminent death on a daily basis probably has something to do with it.

It’s not Stiles’ fault; there’s just something about him that suits Derek so well he sometimes forgets that Stiles is not, in fact, his for the taking.

It would be best for Stiles to put as many layers as possible between Derek and the beckoning scent between his legs. Unfortunately, a precedent has already been set, so once Stiles settles on a movie, he flops onto his back on the sofa and wedges his bare feet beneath Derek’s thighs.

“It’s cold out there,” he says in response to Derek’s expression.

“That’s why socks exist.”

“My feet need a lot of freedom. Can’t cage them in.” He wriggles them a few times for effect and puts his arms behind his head so his snug, threadbare Star Wars t-shirt rides up to expose a rare glimpse of flesh just below his belly button, soft and pale with a dark trail of hair that disappears into his waistband. Derek has devoted a fair amount of time to imagining the spread of his hand over that very spot. Stiles loves to be touched; he would go crazy for it.

He looks away as soon as he realizes what he’s doing. He can’t just sit and stare at the bulge in Stiles’ pajamas all night, but it draws Derek’s attention back over and over again. There’s nothing overtly provocative about it; it’s just _there_ along with the rest of Stiles, laid out all open and vulnerable and distracting. 

Feeling like every bit the psycho Stiles used to accuse him of being, Derek marks his page and puts the book aside. Stiles is going to ask him about this any day now, a worry that doesn’t stop him from turning off the lamp and tugging Stiles’ feet onto his lap.

Stiles likes to comment on Derek’s perceived self-control, as though desire is something you learn to ignore as soon as you graduate high school. It’s actually depressing, how Stiles thinks Derek is so ancient or so dead inside that he could never want someone. It’s even more depressing that this might be the only reason he’s so comfortable with Derek’s hands all over him.

Permission to touch Stiles is incredible and agonizing all at once, but never satisfying. It doesn’t help that Derek has been wound up all evening, his blood hot and reckless. Every factor says he needs to walk away right now, but he can’t.

He rubs idly at Stiles’ feet and thinks about how the other morning, Abe told him over breakfast that Elena said the house stinks of frustration. He’d shrugged it off; she wants him to make some big declaration and doesn’t understand that he already has—as much as he’s willing. Stiles had accepted and even welcomed it more than anyone could expect from a human, especially one who didn’t grow up around wolves.

“Okay, what’s wrong?” Stiles pokes Derek’s thigh with his big toe. “Things are good, right? You’re part of a great pack, nothing bad has happened in weeks, and you’ve got your anchor right here.” He wriggles further into the sofa for emphasis.

Derek nods, eyes on the television, where the chefs have lined up to defend their work.

“Plus, I’m on winter break and your BFF the Sheriff is coming for a visit. I see you texting him all the time, which is a little weird because there was a time when it was my job to keep the two of you as far apart as possible.”

It’s true. Derek enjoys their correspondence, though he’s a little worried about what he’ll say when he sees where Stiles sleeps.

“Things are good, Stiles.” As if this might prove something, he squeezes Stiles’ ankle and slips his hand into the leg of his pajamas. His leg hair is soft against Derek’s knuckles. “Now be quiet so we can find out who made the flakiest salmon.”

Stiles’ leg twitches and then relaxes. Miraculously, he does fall silent. In his peripheral vision, Derek can see that Stiles is watching Derek’s hand, tracking its path up to his knee and following it back down to his ankle again.

Derek strokes lightly at the sensitive spot that stretches between the bones and as usual, is rewarded with a twitch.

As one of the contestants explains his miso-ginger glaze, Derek notices that Stiles is subtly shifting closer, which puts his calves over Derek’s lap and more of his leg in arm’s reach. He’s still watching Derek, eyes heavy.

“Mmm, is this part of being in a pack or is it because I’m your anchor so you want to keep me all tingly and relaxed?” 

Derek ignores the question and gives him a pinch behind his knee, where the skin is warm and tender. It would be too easy to convince Stiles that werewolves go around sticking their hands up each other’s pants and massaging each other until they’re hard and aching without ever talking about it.

And that’s where Stiles is headed. When Derek takes advantage of the new position by sliding over Stiles’ knee and finding the smooth stretch of his inner thigh, a flush appears over the collar of his tee. When he does it a second time, Stiles’ breath catches.

Stiles has beautiful legs. They’re all pale skin and long, lean muscle, and even though Stiles’ style can usually be described as clumsy, Derek knows he’d move just right with those legs around Derek’s waist. Just the thought alone makes Derek unconsciously nudge his thigh outward, as though to open him up, and the flush climbs to Stiles’ cheeks. Stiles’ arousal always gets him in the gut.

“The edges are burned,” Stiles carries on, back to the television as though Derek doesn’t have his hand closer to Stiles’ crotch than his feet. “How can they not notice he’s just hiding it with that sauce?”

“They’ll notice when they taste it.” Derek shoves Stiles’ pajamas up above his knee and goes to work with both hands, raising goosebumps with light strokes and erasing them with deep massage. He pours his affection into it and hopes Stiles is getting something out of this.

He doesn’t want to know Dr. Grant would say.

He loses track of time for a while, caught up in monitoring Stiles’ tiny reactions to what he’s doing. When he comes back to himself, Stiles looks aroused and half-drugged, content where he’s sprawled out across the sofa. He doesn’t seem to mind that the line of his erection is pretty obvious at the front of his pajamas—then again, maybe he figures that guys who rub at other guys with this much enthusiasm don’t get to complain about the end result.

The next episode is starting—Italian food this time. Stiles says something about being hungry and Derek scratches lightly at his other leg through the pajamas, trying to settle them both.

“Are you coming to Liv’s party on Friday? You’ll know some people there from the Center and from dodgeball.” Before Derek can respond, he rushes to add, “And it won’t be like parties back home. Steve and Philip are in their twenties; I’ll probably be the only one still in school.”

“You are very naïve if you think high school parties are different from what’s going to happen Friday.”

Stiles makes an affronted sound but doesn’t argue. He already knows Derek isn’t going to say no.

The party is at Philip’s house. Derek falls back on old habits and does a drive-by in his new truck—this one outfitted with a cargo box for deliveries—the morning of the party. He returns that night to pick up Stiles and has to park a block away. The house is loud and crowded on the main level; he circles the house twice before he notices the door to the basement.

The basement is as crowded as the rest of the house, but not quite as loud. It’s dark except for a few strands of red party lights, and the music isn’t as rowdy as what’s on upstairs. Three girls are smoking weed on a sofa. Other than that, most people are dancing or standing around. It smells of beer, sweat, and body spray, but Derek isn’t put off by it because lain over everything is the scent of people at ease, happy—even joyful. This is what it’s like to be around people who feel safe. 

Stiles is one of those people. Derek sees him from the stairs, dancing on the far side of the room with a blonde girl. While Stiles uses his body most of the time like a car he hasn’t figured out how to drive, Derek doesn’t know how much of that is an intentional distraction and how much is real, because when he dances, all that awkwardness disappears. Right now, he’s smiling, bumping against the people closest to him in sure, fluid rolls of his hips and shoulders—loose enough that Derek can tell he’s been drinking, maybe a lot. He’s shed some of his layers and is in just jeans and a red tee.

“Hey, Derek.” Philip smiles up at him. “Coming down?”

Derek takes the last few stairs and stands with Philip, who is actually a nice guy once you get past how badly he wants Stiles. He’s a good friend, at the very least. “Thanks for inviting me. This is a nice place.”

“Thanks. Stiles is over there. He said he was ‘feeling dancey’ tonight.”

Derek snorts. “Feeling drunk, probably.”

“Yeah.” There’s a wistful strain in Philip’s voice that makes Derek look at him, but his long hair has fallen forward to cover part of his face. “Can I ask you something?”

Derek nods.

“It’s about you and Stiles. I don’t want to pry, but everybody is sort of unclear on whether you guys are together or not.”

An unsteady girl shoulders past them and knocks Philip into the wall, apologizes profusely, and lets her friends usher her up the stairs. In response, Derek and Philip move against the wall.

“You spend a lot of time with Stiles. Can’t you ask him?”

“I could, but. . .” Philip laughs nervously and brushes his hair back. “I’m sorry. This is awkward.”

No kidding. Derek sighs and watches Stiles try to dip the blonde girl. Miraculously, he lifts her as easily as he lowered her, and their laughter rises over the music.

Philip presses on. “It’s just that I didn’t even know if he liked guys until I saw the way he drew you in his comics.”

Derek nods, studying Philip’s face. There’s no way for anyone to know that background shape is Derek—even Derek isn’t certain.

“How do you know it’s me?”

Philip’s smile is a hybrid of confusion and kindness, as though he’s just discovered Derek is stupid and doesn’t want to hurt him. “Your eyes are a little intense. You have a very specific look—it’s hard to miss.” His gaze drops to Derek’s waist. “And, uh, it’s definitely you.”

Stiles is still dancing, and Derek’s heart is beating like he’s right there with him. He hasn’t been omitted from Stiles’ stories; there are pages he hasn’t seen. Of course there are—he’d seen stacks of them on Stiles’ desk, but had assumed they were other projects or rejects.

He could try tonight. He could say something to indicate how much he wants this, or touch Stiles carefully enough that he would just _know_. But if the answer is no, then he won’t have Stiles at all, and he’s not ready to lose everything he’s started to build here.

Stiles spots him through the crowd and actually raises his arm to _wave_ at him like a kid at a parade. Derek shakes his head, which makes Stiles laugh and start toward him, pushing his way through the crowd and still somehow moving to the beat. _Dancey Stiles_ , fuck. He’s infuriatingly charming.

“Look who it is, partying it up on a Friday night.” Stiles’ hands go right for the collar of Derek’s jacket where he clings, his face so close that for a second he’s just a blur of eyelashes.

Derek steadies him with both hands at his waist. “You smell like beer.”

“Yeah? Well, you smell like the opposite of beer.”

“Good one.”

Stiles is still gripping his jacket, still moving to the beat. “Thanks. Anyway, I only had four beers. Four and a half. Plus a shot because society has rules about when people offer you shots. I know my limits, Derek Hale.”

Derek isn’t so sure, considering how much Stiles is pawing at him, but he’s sweetly bright-eyed and upright. “Okay.” He tightens his grip on Stiles’ waist, where his t-shirt is hot and damp. “What does the opposite of beer smell like?”

Stiles lifts his gaze to Derek’s and gives him a thoughtful look before lurching forward and snuffling into Derek’s neck. When he gets to the sensitive spot just under his ear, Derek twists away.

“What?” Stiles looks hurt, his mouth wet and tender and turning up at only one side. “What was that for?”

“Not now.”

Stiles’ hands fall away from his jacket as he nods and regroups. “Let’s go find Steve and Olivia. I think I saw them in the garage. You know Steve’s gotta get everybody’s hood up, and Liv has to be with the guys. Don’t tell her I said that. But yeah.” He’s already making his way upstairs.

The garage is empty other than Philip’s Volkswagon and a wall lined with shelves and boxes. Stiles is already inspecting the boxes, pulling back cardboard flaps and diving in like this approach has never gone wrong for him. But beneath his interest is something restless. 

“Stiles.”

“What.” Stiles turns around and stands with a hand on one hip, hopelessly awkward and predictably direct. “No, let’s talk about this. I did something wrong, right? I violated some sort of contract I’ve never even seen.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Stiles sways toward him, takes a step, and then latches onto his jacket again. “Okay, but I did, and I don’t want to do it again, so just tell me. We’ve already established that you can touch me whenever you want—I mean, last night you had your whole arm in my pants, not that I’m complaining, but I just want to know how it works. Do I have to wait for you to come to me, or can I touch you first?”

Derek meets his eyes. “Of course you can, but what you did downstairs—I can’t have someone at my throat when I’m in a house packed with strangers.”

Stiles melts against him and lays his head on Derek’s shoulder as he settles into the embrace. “Ah, thwarted by your wolfy instincts again. I get it. Is this okay?” They’re in a close embrace, swaying to the muffled music coming from inside the house.

“It’s fine.” It’s better than fine. Stiles is folded against him without any sense of personal space, none of the self-consciousness that sometimes keeps him at a distance. They’ve been sleeping together for weeks, but Stiles is right—giving touch and receiving it are two different things. Touching Stiles gratifies his senses, but Stiles’ eager hands on his body soothes a part of Derek that wants Stiles to want him. He explores Derek’s back and then gropes his way downward.

Derek exhales hard when Stiles’ hands stop just at the edge of his ass and then venture tentatively onward. With grudging effort, he grits his teeth and moves Stiles’ hand to the back of his neck, pressing it there so Stiles knows he doesn’t want him to leave.

“No?” Stiles tips his head up and Derek drinks in his bright, half-lidded gaze. It’s almost shy, with a hint of mischief behind it. It makes Derek rethink everything he’s ever believed about the limits of his own self-control.

“You’re drunker than you think you are.” 

“’m not,” Stiles grumbles, but he moves his attention to Derek’s hair and scratches the way he’s learned to do so well, for long minutes during which Derek slowly lights up from the inside out, one thrilling sensation at a time.

A green Honda sedan is parked next to Stiles’ jeep when they return. “Dad! My dad’s early, Derek!” For a second Derek thinks Stiles is going to jump out while the car is still moving, but he waits, clutching the door handle, until Derek stops. Then he’s out, bounding toward the house with one shoelace untied.

By the time Derek gets inside, Stiles is already in Noah’s arms, babbling about how his dad is a sneaky, sneaky man who can not be trusted. Abe and Elena watch with delight, even as Noah gives Derek a hard look and points to Stiles with the hand that’s not around his shoulder.

“Is this something I should worry about?”

Stiles feigns outrage the way he does when he secretly likes something. “Hey!”

“Just a typical house party,” Derek says. “Terrible beer and worse music.”

“Don’t listen to him. Derek is _not_ qualified to judge things like fun and parties. Look at that grumpy face.” Stiles waves a finger in Derek’s direction, which seems to charm everyone but his dad.

Stiles tucks into his dad’s side while they catch up on the logistics of the next two weeks and life on the farm, but he starts to doze off while Elena is explaining where to find the towels and extra linens, so Derek tugs him upstairs and makes sure he takes off his shoes and drinks a glass of water before he gets in bed.

They lie there for a while, but Stiles doesn’t fall asleep. His silence feels fraught, even after Derek finds his hand under the covers. They lie in the dark for a while before Stiles finally says, “I don’t want to lie to my dad anymore, Derek. This was supposed to be a new start, and now that he’s here, it seems obvious he’s going to be pissed off when he finds out I’m living with a werewolf pack. How did I not think about this?”

“Because you came here to worry about yourself and not your dad. Give him some credit; he didn’t say anything when he found out I was living with you. I think he actually likes it.”

“Yeah, because he thinks you’re a novelty. A pack is different; a pack is a _lifestyle_. And I don’t think he’ll be thrilled that I want to keep studying under Abe instead of going to college.”

“Mm.” 

“I want him to see how great I’m doing now.”

Derek responds to the mournful note in Stiles’ voice by nuzzling at his shoulder. “He’ll see. I promise.”

“Thanks. And thanks for picking me up earlier.”

“No problem.”

Instead of going to sleep, Stiles lies there and stews in anxiety. He’s worried and still a little drunk, so Derek lifts his chin and rubs it lightly against Stiles’ throat—just at the base, no matter how much he wants to just dive in. But there’s no excuse for it, no heightened emotion, just Stiles feeling melancholy, so he restrains himself.

“Did Elena tell you about Christmas?” It’s not his fault his bottom lip touches the warm, smooth skin of Stiles’ neck when he talks. “They celebrate the way my family did, which is pretty cool.”

“Uh, no? Abe told me some stuff but I don’t know how it translates to actual plans.”

Derek is starting to feel like a creep for how much he touches Stiles, but he can tell Stiles likes it, too—sometimes he’ll simply walk up to Derek and stand there, intriguingly close, until Derek pulls him in. When Derek finally does it, Stiles always acts as though he’s won. Even now, Stiles is warming against him, relaxing his limbs as his pulse quickens. He smells of beer and contentment, but most of that is overpowered by the scent of them both together. Their bed.

“The Yule sabbat will be a big breakfast. We exchange gifts that day, and at sundown we do the Yule log ritual. That’s a few days before Christmas. It’s a nod to the return of the Oak King and the departure of the Holly King. You don’t need to know anything, though—Abe will probably do it.”

“So what do we do on Christmas?” Stiles speaks very quietly. It feels like glimpsing something very private to feel the vibration of Stiles’ voice against his lips, where they rest at the base of his throat.

“Christmas Eve we’ll hunt. Nicky is still too young, but me and Elena will go out. Then we cook what we caught for Christmas dinner and spend the day watching movies.”

“That’s cool, Derek. I’m gonna go to sleep now.”

For the first time, Stiles doesn’t roll away when he says good night.

Derek wakes early as always, and when he hears Nicholas creeping out of bed, gets him dressed to join him in the metal barn. Nicholas loves to watch Derek work out. He mimics him the best he can, and especially loves the rope hanging from the ceiling, two stories high.

He follows Derek everywhere. It’s a new experience, and Derek does his best to ignore the way Stiles and the others coo over Derek’s interactions with the young cub. When they get to the barn, Nicholas scales Derek’s back and climbs around so he can take Derek’s face in his hands and pat at his beard with delicate hands as though it’s something special. “Are you a daddy wolf?” Nicholas whispers right in Derek’s face, his soft, chilly fingers splayed over the scruff of his jaw.

It’s terrifyingly sweet, and Derek’s eyes fall closed as he nuzzles their faces together. “We’re brothers,” he says roughly, letting the cub scent him for a few more seconds before putting him down.

Today, Derek gets in half a workout before Nicholas begs for rope time—it doesn’t count if Derek isn’t watching, which can be exasperating. There’s a brief argument about whether he’s allowed to take off his shirt like Derek, which is settled by a compromise that allows him to remove his coat, and then he’s scrambling up the rope with his usual grunts and exclamations and endless running commentary.

Nicholas is nearly all the way up, past the loft and swinging wildly, when Derek catches a whiff of panic and at the same time, hears a shout.

Noah is running from the door, out of breath as he comes to a halt next to Derek and shares a long, wide-eyed stare with him.

“He’s okay,” Derek says quickly, because Noah obviously believes he’s letting a toddler dangle from two stories. He considers a few lies and then falls back on his heels, crosses his arms and wishes he were a little more dressed.

Noah clears his throat twice and then says, “You’re either the worst babysitter in the world or this isn’t a regular kid.”

Derek nods but doesn’t take his eyes off Nicholas. “Time to come down,” he calls.

“Das Stiles’ daddy!” Nicholas waves one hand wildly. “Hi! Hi! I want Stiles to see!”

“ _Now_.”

“Look at me! Look!”

Unnerved, Derek flashes his eyes, which makes Nicholas grasp the rope right away. Derek isn’t usually so harsh with him, so the cub is in a bit of a panic and slides down. He takes it so quickly that he rubs the skin off his palms and is crying by the time he lands. Derek scoops him up and inspects the rope burns, which heal while he’s looking. The tears take longer to stop. Carefully, Derek angles away from Noah and kisses each of Nicky’s little palms, then blows a raspberry on the right one until he gets a giggle.

Elena, comfortingly omniscient, calls for him just after that, so Derek sends him off to the house. He watches until he sees the side door open, and then shuts the door so he can talk to Noah.

Noah looks at the ceiling for a long time, hands on his hips. Finally, he says, “Tell me something to make this seem okay, Hale.”

Derek is also glad Stiles wasn’t around to hear _that._

“It’s a good pack. Everyone is good to each other. It’s nice having people who count on me again. People I count on.”

“And Stiles?”

“I think he likes it, too. He’s barely having nightmares and when he does, he’s not up the rest of the night.”

“Fair enough. I can see he’s doing better. But— _Elena,_ really?”

“She’s my Alpha,” Derek admits. “A good one. Abe is human, and they both love Stiles almost as much as you do. Stiles wanted to tell you, but he wouldn’t ever out a werewolf without their permission.”

He gives Noah a minute to process everything, but he’s already settling, his heart slowing and scent mellowing. Derek takes the opportunity to retrieve his shirt and jacket from the ratty sofa in the corner and put them on.

“Well, that’s one thing,” Noah says slowly, “But there’s still one more. I hope I don’t offend you by asking this, but Stiles is my son and as much as he likes keeping things from me, sometimes I have to put some work into finding out what’s going on with him.”

Derek isn’t going to be _offended_ ; he knows this in advance. He’s going to be _mortified_ because Noah is about to ask if he’s being inappropriate with his underage son, and Derek doesn’t know the answer. He meets Noah’s eyes and finds them sympathetic but pained. “I showed up two days early and Stiles was already moved into your room. How long ago did that happen?”

“It helps with his nightmares.”

“And that’s it?”

Derek looks down at his shoes, hating the way he can’t help but cross his arms in a way he’s been told isn’t polite. He finally shakes his head. “It’s complicated.”

Derek considers bolting out the barn door. It’s cold in the shed and he can tell Noah is beginning to feel it, stomping his feet a little on the concrete floor.

“You knew I came here to find him.”

“And I was happy to help. But that conversation would have gone a little differently if I’d known it was going to be like that.”

Derek winces. “It’s _not_ like that. Not exactly,” he adds, thinking about the party last night and Stiles’ sticky-hot skin. “Not yet. Maybe.”

Noah nods to himself a few times. “I think I’ll feel better about this when I move out here next month.”

Derek nods in agreement. He doesn’t want Noah to think he’s trying to get away with anything. Everyone, Derek included, is excited to finally have Noah around. A few months ago, Noah started the paperwork to become a certified private investigator and the few times Derek has spoken with him about it, his excitement is obvious. Stiles is just as eager to have his dad around and had talked Derek into going in with him on Noah’s Christmas gift: two hundred “Stilinski Investigations” business cards with a logo Stiles designed himself.

“All right, kid, let’s table this discussion until the end of my visit. Next time, Stiles can join us. He’s good at taking the edge off a hard conversation.” The degree of relief Derek feels is almost embarrassing. He nods, and Noah takes pity on him and says, “All right. Let’s go get some coffee.”

When they go inside, Stiles is at the kitchen table with everyone else and looking into his coffee with the glum demeanor of someone trying to pretend they’re not hung over. Elena stirs up a massive amount of eggs and bacon while Abe supervises Mae, eating Cheerios with her tiny pinching fingers.

“Issa cheeyo?” she says, holding up one slobbery piece that Derek acknowledges before he presses a kiss into the top of her head.

Stiles is on the bench side of the table, against the wall, and Derek slides in next to him. “You’ll feel better after you eat.”

“Ugh, is it that noticeable?” Stiles rests his head on Derek’s shoulder and burrows in. “Does anything make werewolves hung over?”

Derek shoots a nervous glance at Noah, who raises an eyebrow, but it’s not like he can just shove Stiles away.

He is very aware of Noah as he sits down across the table with his coffee; he’s not only Stiles’ father but a police officer, so of course he notices the way Stiles is curled so sweetly against Derek. But he doesn’t mention it. Instead, he just nods to himself and takes a sip of coffee.

Elena goes to retrieve Nicholas, which hits a snag as he tries to listen in on before Stiles elbows him. “What do you hear? What’s happening?”

“Nicky is in trouble with markers again,” Derek says, which makes Noah snort.

Stiles immediately shoots his dad an accusing look. “Please! I’m in a weakened state and now you’re going to disparage my childhood obsession with graffiti, which is a _recognized art form,_ by the way.”

The bickering keeps them occupied until Elena finally brings Nicholas downstairs, eyes huge and teary, all sniffles and hiccups. He goes straight to Derek and Derek lifts him onto his lap so he can study the cub’s face, which is covered in a pattern like unruly grass etched with black ink. It only covers his cheeks, chin, and jaw, with a few scribbles over his top lip. “What’s wrong, Nicky?” Derek asks, stroking his hair and thumbing away the new tears.

“Oh my _god,_ nothing’s wrong, Derek. Nicholas has a very handsome beard just like yours.” Stiles nods when Nicholas gives him a hopeful look. “Yeah, buddy. You look just like Derek, is that what you wanted?”

Nicky sniffs and nods, looking to Derek with wide eyes for a reaction, which is difficult because all he can do is look back with equally wide eyes and hug the cub to his chest so that Nicky can feel the rumble of his approval, a purring sound that Nicholas imitates.

Stiles’ scent turns unstable, like deep earth and dead flowers—fierce and fond and primal. When Derek looks at him, his expression is almost angry, but that’s not what his scent says, so Derek kisses Nicky’s ear and ignores it.

Derek spends the afternoon Christmas shopping alone in town. He receives a few texts from Stiles throughout the day: a photo of a grilled cheese sandwich cut into two triangles followed by a blue ribbon emoji, a photo of the tree they’re about to cut down—he hopes no one is letting Stiles have a turn with the axe—and a few prodding questions about what Derek and Noah had talked about that morning, which Derek ignores.

It's weird to have something as ordinary as errands on the docket—asking questions about toddler’s sizing and picking up extra scotch tape for wrapping—but he likes it. His last stop is at the bakery Liv’s family owns to pick up the fruit tart Elena ordered. He also picks up a monster cookie for Stiles and then heads home, where he slips upstairs to hide his gifts.

When he comes back downstairs, everyone is in the living room. The scene is chaotic—Nicholas is hopping up and down in front of the television with a piece of pizza flopping out of his mouth while Mae makes a series of high-pitched squeaks as she squeezes her stuffed elephant, and Stiles has Abe, Elena and Noah laughing at whatever he’s saying. Three pizzas are stacked on the coffee table, the top one flung open and empty save a few remnants of cheese.

The cubs lose their minds when they see him—they’re all officially off their regular routine. They fling themselves at his legs at the same time everyone greets him and Derek laughs, half-elated and half-unnerved.

Stiles opens the second pizza box and retrieves three slices on a paper plate. “Over here.” He scoots over to free space for Derek at the end of the sofa. “Shopping all done? Did you get me something pretty to put under the tree?”

The tree nearly touches the ceiling and smells incredible. Other than a generous amount of silver tinsel, it’s decorated with only pine cones and dried berries and other items from the forest. It’s beautiful, and so is Stiles when he tells the tale of how they felled the mighty tree. Derek doesn’t even try not to smile at Stiles while he talks, which seems to startle Stiles and maybe make him nervous, so Derek busies himself with the dishes for the rest of the evening, dragging it out until everyone calls it a night.

Derek is quiet when he goes to bed; he doesn’t want to wake Stiles, whose sleep has been better but still not enough. Still buzzing with the excitement of a big family holiday, Derek sheds his clothes and crawls into bed, where he realizes that worrying about waking Stiles was unnecessary because Stiles is not asleep.

The scent is unmistakable. Skin and pheromones and sticky sex, thick under the blankets and wafting through the rest of the room.

Derek freezes, and then slowly sinks the rest of the way into the mattress. He can’t leave the room now. If he opens the door, Noah might try to talk to him—or worse, come say good night to Stiles, which wouldn’t look good for either of them.

Stiles’ heart is still thudding with excitement, breath coming too fast. Even though he’s motionless and facing the wall, Derek can tell he’s wound up to the point where it’s hard to stop.

As Derek considers various means of exit, each less graceful than the last, Stiles whispers, “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He stupidly can’t think of anything to say—or anything at all other than the heavy scent of Stiles’ body, warm and ripe and ready. Everything tells him that Stiles’ pants are still shoved down to his thighs.

“Uh, no it’s not. This is one of the most awkward situations I’ve ever found myself in, but it was basically inevitable because there are zero opportunities to jerk off in this house and it’s really starting to get to me.”

“It seems like you’re doing okay right now.”

A sharp laugh. “Yeah, I thought I’d be finished before you came up. My dad had you in his sights with _long talk_ all over his face.”

“I think that look was for you. We had our long talk this morning.” He doesn’t want to talk about this when his blood is up about having Stiles in his bed, aroused and fidgeting and sweetly awkward.

“Cool but can we find a new topic, please? Because I, _ah_.” Stiles bites off the last breathy little sound and the scent of arousal is cut with embarrassment. Derek realizes that Stiles must still have his hand on himself, might be tightening his grip right now and telling himself that it doesn’t count. “Sorry,” Stiles breathes again.

“Stop apologizing. Just go ahead.”

“Go ahead and _what_?”

“What do you think?”

“What!”

He sounds scandalized but if he really wanted to give up, he would’ve pulled up his pants and relaxed into the bed, resigned and unsatisfied. Instead, he’s still facing away from Derek, muscles tense, back curved forward over where he’s still touching himself.

“It’s not like this can get _more_ awkward, Stiles. Just do whatever it is that gets you off so we can go to sleep.”

Stiles makes a strangled sound, but his skin warms and begins to bleed arousal as though he’s full of nothing but pheromones and has just cut an artery. “I never thought Derek Hale would be walking me through a jerkoff session.”

“I never thought you’d need help. From what I’ve heard, this is your wheelhouse.” 

Stiles’ arm starts to move in languorous strokes that Derek follows with all his senses, only half-listening to Stiles as he rambles on. “Yeah, well, I’m not going to just _do whatever gets me off_ when someone is right here, not to make it sound like I normally do anything deviant or top secret—or—oh _god_ —” His movements roll through the mattress like a quickening tide and catch Derek in their wake.

Derek takes in long, slow breaths through his mouth and exhales through his nose. He’s been aching since he caught the first whiff of what Stiles was doing.

“Should I—Stiles sounds strained, distant. “Do I need to let you know when I’m close?”

Derek sighs loudly and hopes it sounds aggrieved rather than sexually frustrated. He already _knows_ Stiles is close; he can hear and smell it and feel every minute change in Stiles’ strokes. “No,” he snaps. “There’s not a lot of mystery left here, okay?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I can tell already tell you’re close, so just _come already_ —” and Derek doesn’t need to finish because as soon as the words are out of his mouth Stiles groans into his pillow while his entire body jerks and there it is, a burst of heat from Stiles in a tangle of sweat and writhing and heavy breathing.

When he settles, he pushes his hair back and stretches out on his back while Derek silently resents him. “Thanks,” he says, then exhales a self-conscious burst of laughter. After a few minutes of silence, during which Derek isn’t remotely fooled into thinking he might go to sleep, Stiles says, “So, was that a born wolf thing?” 

“What?”

“You know. The total abandonment of human social mores about whether it’s okay to whack it while you’re in bed with another dude. Because I bet if I ran a poll past the guys back home I’d get punched a few times just for asking.”

“So you’re asking me.”

“You’re the one being all blasé about it, so _yeah._ ”

Derek lets his claws extend just enough to sink them into the mattress. “No, it’s not a born wolf thing.”

“A pack thing?”

He allows himself a low growl; he deserves it for suffering through all these questions while all the blood in his body is in his dick, but his predicament is completely off Stiles’ radar because as far as Stiles is concerned, Derek is incapable of reacting to the porn show in his own damn bed. And of course Stiles doesn’t fall asleep after he gets off; that would be too easy.

“Okaaaaay, then how about telling me what my dad said to you this morning that had you so weird when you came inside.”

Derek feels suddenly guilty that he hasn’t talked to Stiles about what happened. “He saw Nicky scale the rope, so we had _that_ talk.”

Stiles pokes him hard in the side. “You’re telling me this now? Did you tell him how much I wanted to tell him about it?”

Derek grabs his hand before he can find the ticklish spot under his ribs. Or notice how much he enjoyed what just happened. “Yes and yes, but he wasn’t thrilled. He also isn’t very happy about our relationship.”

“Our—” Stiles starts to flail and then goes still. “Which part does he have a problem with?”

Stiles’ hand is still in his, and Derek is suddenly very aware that they’re lying pressed together in a bed where Stiles just came all over the sheets.

It’s the closest they’ve come to talking about they’ve been doing. How close they’ve been getting to the line.

When Stiles speaks again, his throat sounds half-closed off. “That day in the kitchen,” he says. Derek isn’t certain which one of their hands trembles where they’re clasped together, but he hopes it wasn’t his own. “When you came to my house, right before you left Beacon Hills. That _was_ something, wasn’t it?”

“Stiles. . .”

“Please.” Stiles bows his face to Derek’s chest and just _lies there_. “Just tell me if it happened or not,” he whispers.

Derek lets go of his hand and clasps it to the back of Stiles’ head, holding him in place. “Yes,” he admits, with what he hopes is tone of finality. “Now shut up and go to sleep.”

Despite lying awake for several hours and thinking about how totally normal he was going to be with Stiles the next day, Derek’s stomach drops the moment he sees Stiles ramble downstairs all loose and satisfied. Even worse, Elena’s head pops up from where she’s pouring coffee at the kitchen counter, eager to see what’s got Derek so anxious.

Stiles doesn’t have the same problem. He skims his knuckles over Derek’s shoulders as he crosses the kitchen and then sits across from him. “Good _morning,_ ” he says over his coffee, meeting Derek’s eyes pointedly and smiling like he’s accomplished something. Oh, Christ. Derek stares at him in lieu of deciding on a reasonable reaction.

Elena plops down next to Stiles and asks him about the Community Center’s open house scheduled for that evening, so Derek grabs the Byrd Homes catalog he’s been browsing for the past few days and eats his eggs while paging through it.

“What’s that?” Stiles asks when Elena leaves them alone. “Doing some extremely late Christmas shopping?”

Derek closes the catalog and slides it across the table, watching Stiles’ face carefully as he examines the cover and then rifles through to find all the pages Derek has dog-eared and marked up with his notes.

“What is this, Derek?” he asks, suddenly very still. He’s looking at page 37, the floor plan for a four-bedroom house.

“Elena said I can have as much space as I want, as long as I don’t build too far from the main house.”

“Space? Is this because of last night?”

Derek rolls his eyes and pushes the catalog back toward him. “No, Stiles. I am not building an entire house just so you can jerk off. I thought you’d have opinions. Some of those notes are questions for you.” He’s already selected the layout he wants, but there are still a lot of decisions, so the pages are full of remarks like _deck vs wraparound porch_ and _do you like this for a studio?_ with an arrow pointing to a solarium with built-in bookshelves.

He waits while Stiles takes the catalog again and turns to the most heavily-marked pages, this time reading the notes. When he finishes, he perks up. “This house is for us.” 

“It’ll be a year or two before it’s ready, but the best packs usually have more of an estate than a single home—together but with a little room to breathe.”

Stiles’ mouth is open, eyes wide. “The best packs? This is _awesome_. Room to _breathe,_ ” he says with a sly lilt. “I am so here for this, Derek. Fuck yes I wanna build a house with you.”

Derek can’t help but preen under Stiles’ approval. The heat in his face is half pleasure and half self-recrimination over that pleasure, and Stiles is just sitting there shaking his head and smiling and looking at Derek like he’s done something far more impressive than show him unfinished floorplans. 

He looks at Derek like that for the rest of the day, and Derek rides the feeling. He even lets it build into the vague—and then later, more defined—idea of telling Stiles how he feels. It wouldn’t take much. The next time Stiles gets close he could just haul him onto his lap, kiss his mouth, and see what happens.

Every day, it’s getting harder not to just do it. Stiles had taken it to heart when Derek said he could initiate contact and his contributions have a distinctly suggestive edge. It’s possible Derek is imagining the way Stiles’ hands always drift to the softest parts of him—his waist, the underside of his arm—but he doesn’t think he is. At the very least, Stiles likes the way he feels. Even when they drive to the Community Center that night, Stiles sits perched between his dad and Derek on the bench seat, one jittery leg shoved against Derek’s.

Once they arrive, Stiles drags his dad from person to person, proudly introducing him to all his new friends. He’s nearly as hyper as the cubs, who have been corralled to the gymnasium where they can run around with the other kids, trailing glitter and candy and everything else the hired Santa lavishes upon them.

Steve stops Derek with a half-hug and a story about losing the keys to the automotive lift that makes them both laugh. It’s been a long time since Derek had a buddy, just a guy who isn’t dependent on him for information or protection—someone who’s happy to see him and talk about cars and give each other shit every now and then.

Steve is contemplating the cleanup situation and how to avoid it when through the crowd, Derek sees Stiles leading Philip out the back door. It’s obviously Stiles’ idea; he ushers Philip outside with a hand on his back, and then they’re gone, leaving Derek to consider everything Philip has ever said to declare his interest in Stiles.

“Relax,” Steve says. “Stiles has been freezing Philip out since he got here. Trying to, at least. You wanna get stoned in the shop?”

“I drove Stiles and his dad here. He’s a retired Sheriff.”

“Shit. Do you wanna escape for a while, then?”

Derek looks around for his pack. Elena is still in the gym with the cubs and Abe is talking to Liv about the waning crescent Sagittarius moon.

“Yeah, okay,” he says, and follows Steve into the garage. He stays there for the rest of the evening, listening to Steve talk about the hiking trip he’s taking in April and debating the merits of various national parks. Eventually, Stiles pops his head in and says, “Everyone’s heading home—dad wants to know if you’re ready. Hey, Steve!”

“Hey, Stilinski.” Steve gives Derek a loose hug. “See you in January.”

The Center has cleared out a lot; Mae is asleep over Abe’s shoulder and Elena is attempting to wrestle Nicky into his coat. They gather their things and head to their separate vehicles, Stiles wedged between his dad and Derek again. This time, he smells of Philip and there’s a box on his lap.

Derek isn’t going to say anything, but they’ve barely made it out of the parking lot when he motions at the box. “What’s that?”

Stiles looks down and tightens his grip on it. “Philip gave me a Christmas present.” He sounds flat, and isn’t touching Derek like on the way there.

Noah bumps Stiles with his elbow. “What is it, and why do you seem so put out?”

“Because it sucked. First, it’s a really nice gift and I didn’t get him anything. Next, he apparently has a thing for me—like, a _serious_ thing; I couldn’t believe it, either, and—”

“You couldn’t believe it? Philip is all _over_ you.” Derek takes a breath to rein it in, then adds, “He even asked me about you at his party the other day.” 

Stiles’ mouth drops open. “What did you tell him?”

Derek shrugs and decides it’s a good time to concentrate on the road. Everything he just said is embarrassing, and Noah is probably laughing at him right now.

“Derek, what did you tell him? Oh, I get it. Har har, you did what you’re doing right now and said nothing just to be an asshole. How do you even get away with that? Nobody gets to just ignore people when they don’t want to answer a question, but Derek Hale does it and people just assume his silence is an accurate commentary on the stupidity of whatever they just asked him. Not that that’s what I’m thinking,” he adds. “Anyway, I’ve never exactly had people throwing themselves at me so I had no idea what a bummer it would be to explain that I don’t. . .” Stiles trails off and Derek stares hard at the road, mulling over the implications of that statement.

It’s not about him, but there’s still the chance that it’s a blanket statement, a way for Stiles to warn off the declaration that lives at the back of Derek’s throat.

“I just thought we were really good friends,” Stiles says weakly, and Derek feels even worse.

Noah is shaking Stiles’ shoulder in reassurance. “That’s how it always happens,” he says. “Cut him some slack.”

Derek burns. That _is_ how it always happens. It’s a good thing it’s dark and he has the drive to concentrate on.

“Seriously, why didn’t you tell me, Derek? I could have had a prepared response instead of whatever ended up coming out of my mouth!”

“Maybe because it’s not my job to monitor your love life, _Stiles,_ ” he returns. The last word has a bit of the wolf in it, which he regrets.

He bears down on the gas and lets Noah redirect the conversation for the rest of the drive.

It’s the snap of silence more than anything that wakes him. Derek sits up, aware that there had been a disturbance only a moment before. He reaches for Stiles and finds him sitting upright, trembling, skin damp with fear-tinged sweat. “Okay?”

The sound that comes from Stiles is closer to a groan than an answer.

“C’mere.” Derek guides him down to the bed, where he holds Stiles against his chest and pets him as the fear slowly dissipates and is replaced by the scent of their bare skin warming together.

He’s rubbing his beard against Stiles’ hair, a soothing, repetitive motion, when he first notices a change in the usual night sounds.

“Someone’s here. Hunters, maybe.” He doesn’t know why he says that, but the shift is instantaneous; he’s all teeth and night-vision before he can stop it.

Stiles twists in his arms. “What? How?”

Derek tilts his head and listens. “Three, out near the tree line. One’s the EMT from my accident. He must have noticed how my injuries healed.” Fuck. He’d _seen_ the sideways look the guy had given him when he’d refused treatment, but his Alpha’s _mate_ had been bleeding, his only priority.

He growls and hears Elena’s answering cry from downstairs.

“Come with me. Stay behind me. Don’t get overconfident but don’t forget you have power,” he says before he bounds down the stairs.

After a quick discussion with Elena, whose hair is crazy and eyes are glowing red, it’s agreed that Derek and Stiles will go outside—he’s the pack’s second, and the Alpha always stays with the weakest members.

It’s agreed that Stiles will stay on the porch, and when Derek stalks down the stairs toward the intruders, waiting in the front yard, they meet him with a kind of arrogance that makes Derek’s hair stand on end. They’re hunters, but not like the Argents. They don’t have nearly enough firepower with them, which makes him cautious. Underestimating hunters is always a bad idea.

Derek meets them on the lawn; it’s the EMT and two men who are closely related to him. 

“How many of you are here?” the EMT asks. He’s tall and broad, face shadowed by a baseball cap, but Derek recognizes his scent, his voice, even the way he moves.

“We’ve got humans here. Kids.” All in the house—Christ, they could burn it again, could already be in the process of executing an elaborate plan, and Derek would just be standing here again, watching the ruins.

“You really have kids in there? Or are they werewolf cubs?”

Derek’s fur bristles as he shifts, fighting to suppress what he knows is going to happen. He’ll likely have to kill them. It will risk drawing attention to the pack, which is bad enough, but there will also be the matter of Noah knowing— _seeing_ what it means to be what Derek is.

“It shouldn’t matter,” he growls, sensing the electricity in their pockets, the pitch of them ramping up, and okay, maybe they’ve brought enough firepower, after all. Derek revises his plan and starts to think about how many he can take out before they incapacitate him with tasers. 

The EMT reaches into his pocket and Derek is just readying himself to spring when the guy’s posture slackens abruptly.

Stiles has come off the porch and is next to Derek, bleeding furious magic, head bent in concentration. It feels massive, like a gathering storm, but barely tethered, nearly as frightening as the hunters and their love for fire and high voltage weapons.

“Let it happen,” Stiles says. Derek doesn’t know what he means, but quickly realizes the words are for the hunters, who follow Stiles with their eyes. “Watch my hands, forget your own, forget your grudge, you _assholes_ , forget this night and find your way home.”

Derek doubts they’ll be able to forget the glow of Stiles’ eyes, but the three men fall obediently into a fugue and shuffle aimlessly for a few seconds before they turn and wander away, likely toward wherever they left their vehicle. When they disappear into the dark, Stiles visibly struggles for a moment and then breaks the flow of magic like a plane touching down with just enough control to be called a rough landing rather than a crash, the blue-white current flaring with erratic fingers before it flickers out. It’s clumsy, but he keeps it together, and when he comes untethered and stumbles sideways, Derek catches him.

“They won’t be back,” Stiles gasps as Derek checks him over. His skin is hot and his eyes are wet, but other than that, he seems fine—especially for having just had that much magic moving through him.

“You weren’t ready for that,” Derek says, but it sounds like praise even to his own ears.

Stiles sags against him. “I had to try—we can’t have them go missing. This way, they’ll just forget.”

“Forget what?”

At that, Stiles’ heartbeat stutters.

“Just us, I think. If I did it right. But even if they forget everything, it’s better than the alternative! Elena said the best packs have lots of different means of protection so the wolves aren’t treated like killing machines and don’t start to think of themselves like that, either. That’s how it was when you were growing up, right? It wasn’t always just fight and kill, right? The Argents started that when they took away your pack diversity.”

When they reach the porch, Derek sits on the top step and pulls Stiles down with him. Stiles is right about everything, but it’s not just that he’s right—it’s that Stiles is _thinking_ about these things, working on them, and receiving a pretty damn good education from Abe and Elena about how to live in a strong, happy pack.

It’s too close to everything Derek wants; it _is_ everything Derek wants, and he’s suddenly choked up, saying Stiles’ name and exhaling harsh little puffs of breath into the front of his jacket, overwhelmed by everything Stiles has given him that he doesn’t even come close to deserving. Stiles responds by staying close and letting Derek do whatever he wants without asking any questions, and then they’re being called inside by Elena.

Derek stumbles inside to get his hands on every single person in the house, even Noah, who smells reassuringly of gun oil when he folds Derek into the same type of hug he gives Stiles. Once he’s dragged his knuckles over the sleeping cubs’ tender little necks and received enough praise from Elena that it feels like she’s pouring contentment right down his throat, Derek allows Abe to herd him and Stiles out to the white barn.

“Which tea should you take to restore yourself?” Abe asks Stiles once they’re ensconced in the small kitchen area where he sets about boiling water. Derek busies himself building a fire in the small wood-burning stove and Stiles sits at the farm table where Abe has lit candles in hurricane lamps for a safe, cozy effect.

It's a test. Stiles licks his lips and puts his palms on the table as though to ground himself. “Calendula and nettle.”

“Good.” Abe reaches for a blue tin and shakes some tea into the infuser. “But for me and Derek—”

He sets an enormous jar of caramel-colored liquid on the table, followed by the clink of two shot glasses. “I think we’ve earned a little buzz tonight, yeah? Set us up with some shots?”

The liquid is pungent and tinged with honeyed, worked-over Wolfsbane. Derek remembers the scent from his parents’ pantry—top shelf, off limits. Gets humans and werewolves equally fucked up.

“God, yes,” Stiles says, eyes wide. “Please do.”

“It’s not for you,” Derek says. He shuts the grate and locks the handle, then wipes his hands on his jeans.

“No _kidding._ I’ll be drinking my special tea.”

“Why do you care if I drink, then?”

Stiles raises an eyebrow as if it’s obvious. “Derek Hale with weakened inhibitions? Sign me up. Although, I’m not convinced it’s even possible.”

“ _Stiles_.”

“Please don’t make me listen to this,” Abe says from where he’s preparing Stiles’ tea.

“We’re not, because Stiles is going to shut up now.”

“Ugh,” Stiles replies, which could mean anything.

Derek decides it’s a good time to pour the shots, hyper-aware the entire time that Stiles is watching, unnervingly invested.

“It’s a good night.” Abe turns around and Derek can see he means it; his smile is deep, his happiness real. Stiles has done well; the pack has proven strong; they’ve averted danger and now they get to enjoy each other. Elena’s satisfaction with her pack is palpable, even from the farmhouse, and Derek likes it. He likes how Abe is wearing his familiar blue plaid shirt and how the barn smells of herbs and ink and Stiles, such a good combination that Derek doesn’t have any doubt Stiles was born to this, for this and for him.

He hands Abe a glass and they tap them together before downing the liquor in one burning swallow.

It’s a mistake, of course. Of course Stiles is excited to prod at Derek when his defenses are weak, of course it’s a bad idea to drink when he’s already so churned up, but it’s a celebration, and Derek has a strong impulse to mark the night somehow. This will do.

But it’s definitely a mistake.

“I’m glad we came out here.” Stiles holds his tea with both hands but doesn’t drink it yet. “Sometimes I still can’t believe I’m allowed in here. The white barn— _el granero blanco_. I wanted in so bad when I was a kid. I knew whatever was inside was awesome.”

Derek smiles. It had probably been the magic, and it had probably driven Stiles crazy.

“My dad used to joke that it was for all the illicit drugs Abe was growing,” Stiles adds.

Abe laughs. “That sounds like Noah, and he probably wasn’t joking.” 

They talk about Stiles’ summers at the farm while Derek relaxes in his seat, pleasantly warm. He and Abe sip their next drinks slowly, until Derek doesn’t mind Stiles’ scrutiny anymore and Abe is heading out to bed.

As soon as he’s gone, Stiles slouches in his chair and smirks across the table. He’s hot when he smirks, so Derek always makes a point to pretend it pisses him off.

“So,” Stiles says, dragging it out. “Are you feeling all good now?”

Derek snorts, but everything is nicely smudged at the edges and he feels dangerously inclined to call Stiles over to his side of the table. “Why do you care?”

“I dunno.” Stiles kicks at Derek’s foot under the table. “Maybe I’m waiting to see if the alcohol makes you do stuff.”

“Stuff.”

“Yeah, you know—stuff like rubbing my legs under my pajamas or putting my finger in your mouth.”

“That doesn’t sound like something I would do.”

“I agree!” Stiles taps the table with his teaspoon, a nervous habit. Then he blurts, “Elena says it’s not true that you _can’t_ leave. She said you could develop a new anchor if you wanted.”

Derek stares at him.

“Can’t you just admit that you, I dunno, _want_ to stay here with me?”

Derek isn’t sure he can. It seems like the type of confession that could be used against him later.

“I’ve seen the picture on your lock screen!”

It’s not even the most obvious thing Derek does, he knows that, but it’s one of his more tangible behaviors, so of course Stiles would fixate on it. He sighs and Stiles’ face twists into something offended.

“Excuse me for trying to figure out the boundaries of this thing.”

“Fine,” Derek says before he can stop himself. “Let’s do that.”

Stiles’ heartbeat immediately ticks upward. “Do what?”

“Find your boundaries.”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh-” Stiles makes a dubious sound for an unreasonably long period of time. “What?”

“Come on.” He’s half-kidding, but the exchange also carries a current of challenge that Derek keeps going when he pushes back in his chair and pats the table in front of him.

Stiles gapes at him for a few seconds in his typical theatrical fashion. He’s defensive at first, but eventually Derek can feel the change in his demeanor. He’s considering it, lilting slightly in Derek’s direction, just waiting for Derek to convince him.

With one hand, Derek pushes the empty shot glasses to the other side of the table while with the other he rubs the spot on the table where he wants Stiles. “Right here.” He makes a point to sound impatient, which usually gets Stiles going.

Sure enough, Stiles gives an exasperated sigh and comes slowly around the side of the table to eye the spot in front of Derek.

“You want me to sit there why, exactly?”

Stiles has on one of Abe’s giant fleece-lined flannels over his pajama bottoms, which bunch messily at the top of his boots. There hadn’t been a lot of time to get ready. They’ll need to work on that later, but for now, Derek reaches for Stiles and welcomes him into the space between his lap and the table. Even though Derek didn’t answer his question, Stiles is suddenly there, shoving awkwardly up onto the table, his chest eye-level with Derek.

The first thing he does is push Stiles’ knees apart so he can get in closer between them, his chair scraping forward, a hand clamped down on each thigh. In response, Stiles’ hands come down to Derek’s shoulders—flighty, restless things.

“Okay?” He glances up at Stiles to see his mouth twitch at the corner.

He should have known he’d end up like this. Instead of keeping a reasonable distance, he’s orchestrated a scenario where he inevitably goes too far. Except, god, Stiles is _here,_ and the back of his head is warm against Derek’s palm from where he was sitting in front of the stove.

When Stiles’ head falls to the side, Derek drags the blunt edge of his nails down Stiles’ throat, very lightly at first and then hard enough to leave pink marks in their wake.

For good measure, he does it once more with a gentle barely-there touch, pleased when Stiles shivers and gives a little “mmm,” of encouragement.

There’s no sign he’s approaching anything resembling a boundary, so Derek skips forward and burrows his hands under Stiles’ t-shirt, pushing his way beneath the layers so that both palms get nothing but smooth flesh. Abe’s flannel is too bulky, but Derek is determined, eager to finally get his hands on the slight rise of his pectoral muscles and, once he’s stroked the skin to sensitivity, taps at his right nipple. Beneath Derek’s finger, the flesh is tight but supple, the most titillating part of Stiles that Derek has ever touched.

This must be why people drink. All the hesitation that normally rules his decisions is gone—he wants to keep touching Stiles and so he does—chest and belly and even a brief dip into the front of his waistband, just enough to feel the soft crinkly hair beneath.

“ _Derek._ ” Stiles isn’t drunk at all. The only influence he’s under is his usual forward, impulsive nature when he curls forward and clings to Derek’s neck, face buried in the hair just behind his ear. “Derek, that feels—oh my god, are you serious? That feels so good.”

Encouraged, Derek palms Stiles’ chest and tugs at his waistband again, surprised when Stiles jerks back.

When he starts to withdraw, Stiles grabs Derek’s hands and returns them to his chest, covering them with his own and holding them there. “No, no, don’t stop. It’s just that you’re getting really, really close to discovering your Christmas present and I didn’t want to ruin it.”

Derek’s fingers twitch where they’re trapped between Stiles’ palms and his bare body. “My Christmas present.”

“Yeah.” Stiles guides Derek’s hands over his chest until Derek takes over and launches an exploration of his own. “You don’t mind that it’s early, right? It’s a few days until Christmas, but tomorrow’s Yule, which is what it seems like you guys care about, so. . .”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He isn’t sure he cares—not with Stiles letting him rub at the soft fur under his arms the way he’s always wanted to. There’s no indication that Stiles wants to stop. Instead, it seems like Derek is free to carry on, running his hands up Stiles’ thighs and stopping only when the span between his thumb and forefinger comes to rest against the edge of Stiles’ erection.

He freezes and looks up to check Stiles’ face, which is flushed at the hollows of his cheeks and slack with pleasure. So much for finding Stiles’ boundaries—they’re both fully aware that Derek’s hand is snug against Stiles’ dick and neither of them are doing anything but breathing hard and staring at each other.

When Derek wets his lips, Stiles exhales a sound of shock. “Holy shit, you’re gonna suck my cock, aren’t you.”

Derek raises an eyebrow even though only a moment earlier he’d been thinking about the logistics of that very thing. He knows exactly how he’d do it, because touching Stiles is incredible but not nearly enough—apparently not for either of them, judging by the way the pad of his finger is slicking up where it rests at the tip of Stiles’ cock. He can feel the urgency behind it. This is going to be quick.

“I want you to.” Stiles grips Derek’s waist with his thighs, as though would be any chance of him moving away from the heavy cloud of arousal and magic and desperation that emanates from Stiles’ beautiful skin. “Only if you want to. I thought you were gonna do it that night on the sofa. You got me so hard and then wouldn’t stop looking—every time you looked, I thought you were gonna go for it, are you—oh, you’re. . .”

The sight of Derek bending his head is apparently enough to derail Stiles, but only for a moment. Then he’s back to clutching at Derek’s shoulders and giving enough verbal encouragement for an entire _team_ of cocksuckers. It has the intended effect: Derek doesn’t hesitate to slash Stiles’ pants open from waist to knee, eager to bury his face in his crotch, which he does, covering his lower belly in hard, wet kisses and rubbing his beard in the crease of his thigh, every wild instinct triggered by the pheromones in the air and the taste of sex and Stiles in his mouth.

He burrows lower, licks at Stiles’ balls with the broad shape of his tongue—pushes them from side to side and nuzzles at the base of his cock while Stiles folds over him and moans his approval into Derek’s hair. 

He holds Stiles’ thighs apart so Stiles has no choice but to brace his hands on the table behind him to stay upright, and goes at him until everything is wet from Derek’s mouth and the thin, silky liquid he keeps coaxing out of Stiles. Before long, Derek’s face is drenched in Stiles’ musk and his entire body is singing with desire.

He’s finally about to put his mouth where Stiles keeps straining to get it, right at the head of his cock, when he sees it.

It’s the present Stiles was talking about, right there in black ink at the top of Stiles’ left thigh: a triskele the size of a fist, identical to Derek’s.

The meaning is unmistakable. His eyes find Stiles’ right away and find them heavy, knowing, as they both acknowledge what Stiles has done and what it means. This mark is a present for _Derek_ ; Stiles said so explicitly. Possession and power, as strong as when he’d been Alpha, course through him before he can take a breath.

In a moment of desperation, Derek wrenches his mouth away from Stiles and doubles over with gut-wrenching pleasure he doesn’t know how to take. Distantly, he hears Stiles calling to him, but all Derek can do is press his face to Stiles’ thigh, will his body to stop shuddering—and, of course, deal with the mess of having just come, fully shifted, in his jeans.

When he comes back to himself, wrecked in every way, all he wants to do is kiss Stiles. And maybe they should talk about it first, but Derek just goes ahead and takes what he’s wanted for so long—this particular sort of communication he’s always known he and Stiles would be great at.

He’d been right. Somehow, Stiles injects all sorts of smiling and talking into the kissing itself, so sweetly wanting and so good at this that he has no problem expressing his enthusiasm with deep and deeper kissing, all while avoiding the dangerous edges of Derek’s teeth. But he’s still Stiles, so after a few minutes of eager kissing, he swipes an inquisitive tongue over the lengthened canines like the precocious kid he’s always been, and the taste of blood blooms on Derek’s tongue.

“You idiot,” Derek pants, leaping to his feet. He still can’t fight back the shift, so he hovers in front of where Stiles is perched on the table with his shirts rucked up and pajama bottoms torn to shreds.

“Sorry.” Stiles licks a crimson smear from his lower lip. “Elena told me to make sure you weren’t surprised by it but _I_ thought she meant like, make sure nobody’s around.”

The triskele is still visible, stark against his pale skin.

“Thank fuck nobody was around,” Derek growls, head bent low as he tries to breathe past all the sex smells.

He can’t look at Stiles right now, so he clears a wide path around the table to dampen the fire in the stove. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going out for a run. You lock up the barn, and I’ll meet you in our room _after_ I take a shower to clean off the mess I just made.”

Stiles emits a whiff of excitement and despair—to be fair, he had been just milliseconds away from what Derek is pretty sure would’ve been his first blow job—so Derek bangs through the double doors and outside before he tries to finish him off, teeth and claws be damned.

Derek takes his time in the shower. His run sobered him up, and now it feels like he’s playing catch-up.

He knows what Stiles tastes like.

Not only does Stiles reciprocate his feelings, but he’s made a permanent declaration about it in the form of that damn tattoo. Derek can’t wait to look at it again. He can’t wait to _touch_ Stiles again, and this time he doesn’t have to feel guilty for thinking about it.

Just thinking about the tattoo gets him all worked up, and when he steals into his bedroom where Stiles is waiting, it’s with one of the most aggressive erections of his life.

“There you are,” Stiles says when the door closes behind Derek. “I was starting to think you might have second thoughts, and—oh, _hi,_ Derek Hale is naked.” He sits up in bed and doesn’t even try not to stare. “Don’t get me wrong; I’m naked, too, but that is. . .” He gestures at Derek’s cock, which is sticking nearly straight out and bouncing lightly with every step he takes toward the bed.

“You have one, too, Stiles.” Derek crawls onto the bed and tugs off the covers to prove his point.

“Yeah and I thought I liked it, but now I’ve seen yours and _hnnh_.” Stiles climbs on his lap and starts plying Derek’s neck with sweet, enthusiastic kisses that raise goosebumps all down his arms.

He didn’t know Stiles had this in him, but he had hoped. He isn’t so much confident as fearless, as though it hasn’t occurred to him to rein in any instinct.

Stiles’ hands are everywhere, exciting Derek and making it hard to remember what he wanted to say. Fingernails rake over the small of Derek’s back, then quickly over the curve of his buttocks as though by accident, but Derek knows better.

Derek reaches for the tattoo and presses down with his thumb. “Do you remember when you said _mi studio es su studio_?”

“What?” Stiles grinds against his lap and moans in a way that makes it clear he doesn’t mind if anyone hears what’s going on. “I guess? Who cares.”

“I don’t want you to be mad.”

“God, how _could_ I?” Stiles puts his arms around Derek’s neck and bites at his lower lip until it turns into a full-blown make-out with tongue. Kissing Stiles is like talking to him or arguing with him, only better because of how _eager_ he is to get inside Derek’s mouth. 

Derek can’t believe how it feels Stiles slides his tongue against his own—hot and slick, a little rough—and encourages Stiles to repeat the move a few times before he pulls back. “You might be. I looked at the rest of your drawings. The ones you had stuffed in your bottom drawer.”

Stiles pulls away, his expression stricken, but his mouth so well-kissed that Derek has to touch it. 

“Philip told me about them and I wanted to see for myself.”

“That’s. . .really embarrassing,” Stiles says slowly. His tongue flicks against Derek’s thumb. Derek can feel the rise in Stiles’ temperature as he squirms over Derek’s discovery.

Derek isn’t an ambiguous shadow in Stiles’ life; he’s a recurring theme. In the pages he’d found, he had appeared on page after page, with a distinct focus on his ass. Stiles obviously likes Derek’s body, judging by how many of the drawings are shirtless, but the ass is nearly always the focal point—from the side, from behind, in jeans, sweatpants, and even once in a pair of tiny workout shorts Derek is positive came solely from Stiles’ imagination. Derek doesn’t spend much time thinking about his own ass, but he’s seen its reflection and Stiles is apparently a master of reproduction. He can draw it _in motion._

“Not embarrassing. You think I don’t have any fixations?”

“You mean besides my neck?” Stiles huffs out a laugh and tips his head to the side. “Ever since you got here you’ve made it the permanent parking spot for your face, and do you _know_ what it feels like when you rub your beard there?”

“Yes. I love your reactions.” Derek pushes Stiles down to the bed and for a few minutes they both indulge in mindless frotting while Stiles gropes at Derek’s ass, babbling incoherent praise while he pushes and pulls at both cheeks, obviously excited but too inexperienced to dare anything further.

Finally, one finger approaches the crease and Derek spreads his legs in response, bending them slightly so his knees dig into the mattress and he’s spread open for Stiles, who makes a strangled sound.

“Derek, _Derek._ Are you serious?” He traces his finger down and down, until it catches on the tightly gathered skin of Derek’s asshole. When he touches it with intent, very lightly, enough to make everything throb at once, Derek knows that Stiles does this to himself and knows exactly what feels good. Trying to still the urgent movement of his own hips, he mouths at Stiles’ ear and roughs out, “I’m serious.”

“I’m gonna come,” Stiles gasps, lifting up with all his strength to grind up against Derek, who clambers off the bed toward his dresser.

“Not yet.” He throws a bottle of lube at Stiles, who catches it with both hands and looks at it with despair.

“Slick yourself up,” Derek says as he crawls back onto the bed and lies on his back, hands behind his head, thighs spread. “Don’t come yet.”

“Don’t come yet,” Stiles mutters darkly. “Right, no problem.”

Derek watches avidly as Stiles spreads the wet over his erection with a whimper. It doesn’t matter if he lasts. Derek just wants Stiles to have some of what he’s obviously been wanting. Impatient, he drags Stiles between his legs and then lies there, hands behind his head, waiting.

Stiles looks entirely different like this: dark, focused, and very, very serious as his eyes move over Derek’s body, taking him in. 

Eventually, looking isn’t enough. He slides his hands under Derek’s buttocks and gives them a hard squeeze, thumbs excitingly close to the crease. When he does it, he meets Derek’s eyes and Derek’s heart stutters at the intimacy. The sly, sweet smile Stiles gives him says he understands exactly what’s happening.

Derek spreads his knees wide. “C’mon. Rub yourself on me.”

“Like, on your. . .”

“Here.” Derek reaches down and guides Stiles until his dick is wedged in the narrow crease all slicked with the lube Derek made him put on.

Stiles presses his face to the base of Derek’s throat and moans. “I can’t believe you’re letting me do this—I could just fuck you right now, Derek, could just—god, I’m almost fucking you-“ He breaks off to suck at Derek’s throat while he moves his hips, experimentally at first, and then with more intent.

If he was self-conscious before, he’s over that—Derek would be surprised if there were anything in Stiles’ head at all but the way his dick is squeezed between Derek’s glutes. His commentary continues, equal parts pornographic and earnest. When Stiles focuses, he _really_ focuses. The idea that Stiles thinks about this is such a turn-on that Derek tries not to think about it too hard. However, for Stiles it’s a favorite topic of conversation and Derek can’t ignore Stiles’ constant dialogue about how he can’t believe Derek is letting him do this, how he thinks about Derek’s asshole all the time and how he could ever get Derek to let him touch it. _Or lick it,_ he adds at one point, getting himself so worked up that he stops moving for a long, strange stretch of time— _so I don’t come yet,_ he explains.

Derek just kisses him in response.

His lips are smooth and pliant and taste of the Calendula tea, and at one point, they curve into a slow, pleased smile while Derek licks his way over them and tries to work his way back in.

For a while, Derek lets Stiles light him up by rubbing his dick over Derek’s most sensitive spots, until they’re so close they’re not being careful anymore. When Derek moves to get more friction, Stiles is immediately devoted to giving it to him, grinding so his belly rubs up and down Derek’s cock.

Derek tries to hang back and watch the way Stiles moves as he learns his favorite ways to give and take pleasure, but it’s hard. Stiles quivers on the edge every time he discovers something that feels good, eager for that pleasure but reluctant to go first, and before too long, he’s a wreck, twitching and leaking and fighting against what earlier he was working so hard for. He probably has no idea that he’s been doing a good job of keeping Derek _right there_ the entire time. Between the constant slick stimulation across his asshole and the rhythmic pressure on his erection—Stiles _has_ to know what he’s doing there—Derek’s balls ache with the need to fuck and come.

He tries to tell himself it’s an act of mercy when he finally grabs Stiles by the hips and grinds up so he rides the head of Derek’s cock with just the right pressure. “Right there, like that,” Derek insists, over and over, as he bucks against Stiles and comes in languorous waves, mouth open with pleasure, encouraged the whole time by Stiles’ breathy sounds of disbelief and very obvious approval.

The orgasm is so intense it leaves him lightheaded, disoriented, still jerking against Stiles’ belly and writhing in his own mess when Stiles says “Oh Derek, fuck, _fuck,_ ” and makes a noise so loud and obscene that his phone on the night stand flashes with a new message Derek is sure came from inside the house, even as Stiles comes wedged against Derek’s ass.

The room falls back into darkness as the message fades and Derek comes down. It turns out that Stiles is okay with being sticky and extremely pleased to be cuddled. His hands roam gently over Derek’s chest and occasionally up to his face with a tenderness that Derek didn’t expect. He wants to kiss each of Stiles’ fingers, to pin him against the bed and drench him in his scent, to leave a trail of visible bites over his arms, and then crawl inside Stiles’ mouth to be marked in the same ways.

Instead, he holds him close and kisses his face.

Stiles hugs him back. “I’m afraid to look at that text,” he admits as he scratches at the line of hair beneath Derek’s belly. Derek responds by running his hand up Stiles’ outer thigh and over his hip before he reaches for the phone and presses the side button.

_that better be a nightmare I just heard_

“Not great.” He shows it to Stiles and tosses the phone onto the nightstand.

“Argh, then why do I feel so great? I can think of literally nothing he can say that could ever bother me. In fact, I may now be immune to all negativity.”

“I didn’t inoculate you, Stiles. That’s just afterglow.”

Stiles huffs the way he does when Derek doesn’t go along with him. Derek likes how he doesn’t move away and how instead, he keeps up a slow exploration of Derek’s body—nothing overtly sexual, but with open curiosity and enjoyment.

It makes sense that Stiles would be so good at cuddling. It allows him to channel his restless energy by tracing his fingers over the lines of Derek’s body while Derek tries not to shiver and arch and engage in the more wolfish aspects of romance. Afterglow can be dangerous, but after a few minutes of Stiles drawing his affection onto Derek’s shoulder, chest, and bicep, Derek gives up.

“Let me see the tattoo again.”

Growing up, Derek loved big breakfast, but it’s harder to be enthusiastic after staying up the whole night before engaging in life-altering kissing and a general reluctance to fall asleep. They’d lain together sharing slow kisses until eventually, Derek had rested his face on the fluff of Stiles’ hair and like a switch had been thrown was asleep. Going by the time-stamp on the text from Noah, they’ve had about three hours of sleep when the knock comes: a slap of Noah’s palm against the door, then two short raps with his knuckles. The house already smells of warm, sweet bread.

“Time to make breakfast!”

Stiles wakes with a moan before the sound trails off into an interested, “mm” that Derek tries to discourage at first but then encourages by shoving his thigh between Stiles’ because he smells so good and his waist twists so beautifully in Derek’s hands.

“I would be on my best behavior today if I were you two,” Noah says from the other side of the door.

Stiles whimpers against Derek’s shoulder. “Be down in five minutes!”

It’s more like ten, because showers are a necessity, but soon they’re downstairs in the kitchen where Abe has put on his old James Taylor records and is swaying lightly at the sink in a rooster-patterned apron. When he turns, paring knife in hand, Derek sees the pile of skinless potatoes he’s working on. Nicky holds one up, his legs dangling from the counter. “I’m helping!”

“. . . _and you know wherever I am, I’ll come running_ ,” Abe sings along, in his usual good spirits.

With Elena’s silent, suppressed amusement and Noah’s skepticism, the room is too full of land mines, so Derek wanders over and gives Nicky a high five. “Are you doing quality control?”

“I hafta check tatoes,” he says, turning it over in his little hands and examining it with gravity.

Derek glances at Abe and receives a broad, knowing smile. “Morning, Derek.” He hands Derek a potholder. “Check on the banana bread?”

Stiles has scooped up Mae and is doing a terrible job of pretending he’s not using her as a human shield against his dad’s scrutiny. “Happy Yule, Mae-Mae!” Derek didn’t have the heart to tell Stiles about all the redness around his mouth and chin while they were upstairs, but he’s painfully aware of everyone else noticing it.

Elena can’t even pretend she’s not delighted. To be honest, neither can Derek. The only thing keeping him from Stiles right now is Noah’s looming judgment. But Elena gets it and embraces Derek, smelling happy and powerful and a little like bananas and brown sugar in her weird candy-cane tunic that reaches the ground and puffs out a little at the shoulders.

She notices him looking. “Do you like it? Claudia and I bought matching versions of this atrocity just after college.” She steps back and smooths the waist. “We thought they were funny, and then they somehow became tradition.”

Stiles puts Mae down. “Mom’s had snowflakes.”

His dad looks at him. “I didn’t think you’d remember that.”

“It was part of Christmas.”

“Christmas!” Nicky kicks his heels against the cabinets. “Presents later, Mama said.”

Elena rubs Stiles’ back when she walks past him. “Sit with your dad,” she says. “Take him some coffee and get what you want to drink. We’ll let you know when we need help.” 

While he cracks eggs into a giant bowl, Derek keeps his senses trained on Stiles. The kitchen is warm and festive, enhanced by their close call the night before, and after a pleasant hour or so of cooking, they sit down to eat: Abe and Elena at each end of the table, the cubs on one side in their booster seats, and against the wall, Stiles between his dad and Derek.

Elena makes a brief speech about how happy she is to have everyone here for the Yule sabbat, and her gratitude for the departure of the Holly King and the return of light. Stiles follows up with some of his own remarks about Yule, which he researched after Derek told him about it, and Elena praises him extensively.

The breakfast is everything it’s supposed to be. The banana bread is cut into thick slices and piled onto a platter along with crepes—tightly rolled, oozing with apple compote, and stacked like an entire winter’s supply of firewood. In front of Elena is a pan with a jumble of venison bacon, a bowl of scrambled eggs Derek had fluffed himself, and farther down the table, the centerpiece: an enormous dish of potatoes, fried and then layered over Abe’s favorite garden vegetables.

“So today is big breakfast and gift exchange,” Noah says. “What’s the plan for the rest of the week?”

“Christmas Eve is a hunt,” Elena says. She looks devilishly pleased. “I usually abstain since it’s just me, but this year I’ve got Derek so we’ll run in the woods that night and cook up whatever we catch for Christmas dinner.”

Stiles is eating ravenously, but he makes a sound of affirmation. “When will the cubs be big enough to hunt with you?”

Dereks shrugs. “Five or six. It depends how much control they have.” He chews on a piece of bacon and looks at Nicholas, lets himself imagine what it will be like to take him out to run for the first time. It feels good, all of it, warmth in his belly and tension at the back of his throat, as he allows himself to admit that he loves this cub, loves this pack. Under the table, he squeezes Stiles’ leg.

Stiles nudges him with his shoulder, turning in close, their eyes meeting in a mutual smile, and Noah groans.

“Sorry, dad,” Stiles says, right after shoving a piece of banana bread into his mouth. “I’m just really happy.”

“No apologies necessary,” Abe says. “But maybe try not to be so happy while people are sleeping.”

“We could have _d-i-e-d_ last night,” Stiles grumbles. “A little perspective would be nice.” 

Derek widens his eyes at Stiles in a way that usually shuts him up.

“Let me tell you about the Oak King, Noah,” Elena says, and holds court for the rest of the meal.

After everyone has eaten, it’s time for a nap. When Stiles hears this, he does a terrible job of disguising his excitement and Derek wants to shove a bag over his head so Noah will _stop looking like that_.

As soon as they close the bedroom door, Stiles starts rubbing at the front of Derek’s jeans. There’s nothing particularly skillful about it but it gets Derek instantly hard just because Stiles is so eager for it, opening his mouth to Derek and not caring about the scrape of beard or Derek’s general lack of self-control.

This time, he pins Stiles to the bed and holds him there, observing the subtle changes in his temperature and blood flow as he carefully pins him with thigh, hip, and, on either side of Stiles’ head, presses his hands to the mattress.

“You like this,” he whispers as he moves his mouth slowly over Stiles’, not kissing, but feeling the texture of his lips and enjoying the closeness, the suppressed wild energy Derek can feel just beneath the surface. He wonders how long Stiles can be patient—probably not long.

Stiles arches against him, testing Derek’s grip. “No kidding, I like everything you do.”

Derek draws back enough to admire the way the sunlight falls on the rise of Stiles’ cheekbones and lights up his skin. While he’s looking, eyes roaming gently over Stiles’ face, Stiles blinks up at him.

“You should see what your eyes look like right now,” he whispers, as perfectly quiet as Derek was about to remind him they need to be, and Derek sinks down, kisses him the way he’s always wanted, closes his eyes against the sweetness of it.

“Sleep with me,” he breathes, nosing his way across Stiles’ cheek and to his temple, where he presses another kiss. “We’ll be up late tonight.”

“I hate that you mean actually sleep.”

“There’s no privacy, Stiles.” Derek can’t bring himself to get off of Stiles. “We spent all night having sex. Everyone’s already talking about it.”

“I know that,” Stiles hisses, sounding pissy, but they don’t move. Derek still has him pinned, is still hard between Stiles’ thighs.

“It’s embarrassing.”

Stiles slides his hands down Derek’s back and under his waistband, trailing his fingers over the rise of Derek’s ass more lightly than he’s ever touched him, as though if he’s careful enough, Derek won’t notice what’s happening. “It’d be _more_ embarrassing if it didn’t feel so good,” he argues with a roll of his hips and a whisper of “ _Jesus, Derek, sorry._ ”

Derek bites lightly at Stiles’ jaw and gives up. “Don’t be sorry,” he says, thrumming with arousal and contentment and desperate affection. “Do you think you can be quiet when you’re coming in my mouth?” 

He’s not quiet, but Derek thinks everyone probably took precautions before they lay down for the napping portion of the day, so when they reconvene in the family room mid-afternoon, the tension from breakfast has disappeared and everyone is smiling, laughing, busying themselves with the gifts they plan to give the others. Derek has been keeping his in a large gift bag that he has to wrestle away from Stiles twice.

Nicholas is running from room to room, melting down with anticipation of his presents and frustration with the adults for taking so long. Eventually, he’s scolded by Elena for biting the edge of the coffee table with his wolf-teeth.

“We better get started before this guy eats the sofa!” Stiles tosses Nicky into the air and laughs when Derek catches him.

“Only good cubs get presents,” he growls into the curve of chubby cheek. “Have you been good?”

“Yes!” Nicky shouts, clinging hard. He’s overexcited, eyes flashing gold, and Derek knows he’s not doing anything to settle him but this is probably the first holiday Nicky will remember and Derek wants it to be a good one. When everyone is ready, he plops down next to the tree with Nicky on his lap and reaches for his bag of gifts.

“Stiles used to get like this.” Noah joins Abe on the sofa. “He took down the whole tree one year.”

Elena is the last one in, carrying a large wooden tray that contains the Yule log, some candles and matches, and a jug of wine with five goblets.

The gift exchange begins. Derek starts with Nicholas, who loves his cowboy hat so much that he bursts into tears and has to be distracted by the suggestion that he help Mae open hers. When she opens it, Stiles laughs at what Derek picked out, a mouse costume that Elena helps her into immediately.

“Derek, man. Not the mouse costume. Did you do this just to mess with me?”

“I did it because it’s cute,” Derek says. “Look at her.” Mae is rolling around on the floor in her costume, pleased with everything that’s happening. Maybe he is messing with Stiles a little bit, but it’s worth it to see the way Stiles goes outraged and charmed all at once.

“Will you feel better if I give you yours now?” Derek is glad the others are mostly occupied exchanging their own gifts because he feels self-conscious as soon as Stiles turns his attention to the small box in Derek’s palm.

“Um.”

He watches Stiles take in the size of the box and contemplate its contents.

“It’s fine,” he says, pushing it toward Stiles, who’s already in his space. “Go on.” He wants to get it over with before everyone else notices them.

Stiles is quick to untie the twine Derek used to secure the gift, and only a few seconds later he’s lifting it from the box, the strand of stones Abe had showed him how to polish and string onto the plain leather tie he selected.

“It’s for your nightmares,” he says quickly.

Stiles closes his hand over the bracelet and gives him a very slow smile that he hasn’t seen before but would like to see a lot more. “Yeah, it is,” he says softly. His hand brushes Derek’s when he passes it over. “Put it on me?”

There’s a deep satisfaction in fastening the piece he worked so hard on onto Stiles’ left wrist while Stiles identifies all the stones. “Amethyst, Green Jade, Moonstone—aw, you added _Prehnite_ ,” he says, fixing Derek with a look that shouldn’t make him as nervous as it does—it’s accusatory, fond, as though he’s just discovered and is about to make a public guess about how much Derek loves him. Before Derek can discourage him, he tilts his head and rests his right hand over the bracelet. “It feels magic.”

“I made it,” Derek admits. “It better be magic.” It had been the most painstaking project he’d ever endeavored, but worth now, with Stiles crawling onto his lap for a full-on hug, arms around Derek’s neck, a whispered _thank you_ in his ear.

“Oof. Not that again,” Noah says, but he doesn’t seem to mind much.

“Mind in the gutter, dad,” Stiles says, conveniently forgetting how much sex they’ve had in the past twenty-four hours. “I’m just showing my gratitude.” He raises his wrist and lets the cubs touch the crystals Derek had cut and polished so carefully.

“Cheers to that!” Elena raises her glass of wine while Abe passes the bottle around for everyone to fill their goblets. “To gratitude. For a strong pack, a well-handled crisis, and Noah’s return to Townsend Farm. And to the Oak King!”

“To the Oak King,” Derek murmurs, then drinks deeply, his eyes on Stiles. 


End file.
